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I wanted to share with you some experiences we are having at our home and actually have had for a number of years. I have to say I am a little hesitant to talk about this for many reasons but lately we have seen an increase in activity and I am not sure why.

We live in a normal suburban home built in the early 80s (I think). I do know the previous owner of the house met an untimely end in a car accident with a drunk driver a few miles from the house. I also know the following occupant lived there many years but is also now deceased (not related to the house as far as I can tell).

I moved into the house in May of 2007 and almost immediately began to experience a few small unexplainable things. My son is very sensitive and he saw someone several times in the kitchen area, I personally heard someone talking (unintelligible) when I was in the kitchen and he was in the living room but it sounded like a female voice. This was two years ago. Since then the activity has been fairly sporadic... Increasing from time to time - subsiding in others. Mostly we have experienced odd noises - voices, a repentant "swooshing" sound like material being moved about, both my son and I have seen a woman in the kitchen/laundry area, the sound of the front door opening and closing at all hours of the day and night (but the door does NOT actually open, it just sounds like it does) . My dogs also hear these things and look toward the apparent source of the noise.

Lately in the last six months the activity has increased. It seems primarily centered around my 21 year old son and 15 year old daughter. Items disappearing and reappearing, the swooshing noise, the sound of a car driving through the rain - except it is INSIDE THE HOUSE - and we haven't had any rain in over a year. Now not only do we get the door opening sound, but also the phone is ringing - ok actually the phone doesn't register a missed call, but the three of us have HEARD the phone ring - it stops before you get there. My son has had his hair pulled so hard it bruised his scalp. My youngest daughter (12) has been awakened by someone tugging on her foot. My dogs have days where they go nuts... Very nervous barking at nothing all day and night.

Last night around 4am my dog started barking, a very agitated and angry bark. This went on for about 2 minutes. As I got up to see what was going on I was putting on a robe and I heard the front door slam shut. I went to the door and as I walked toward it - I heard the sound of someone vigorously sweeping. I couldn't tell if it was inside or just outside the door. The door was locked as it should have been. I opened it - still heard the sweeping noise but - there was no explanation of where it came from. I went outside onto the front step (the sweeping was either just inside or just outside the door but in that area) - and the door slammed shut on me. It wasn't locked and I was able to go back inside but as soon as the door shut - the sweeping noise stopped. I never made it back to sleep.

Okay believe it or not with the exception of the hair pulling and foot tugging I could probably actually live with all of this - except, well here is where the story gets complicated.

This is not the first house where we have had issues. When my son was 6 and my daughter was an infant we lived in Germany. At that time I was fairly agnostic toward the paranormal... I wasn't sure if I believed or not. After living there I was convinced. I have never felt or seen or heard anything that strong in my life. There was a female and male entity in that house that not only we saw /experienced...people from outside of our family saw and heard the same things. We actually had some negative altercations with those entities and we ended up moving out of the house because of it. Both of my older children experienced phenomenon in that house.

Now this is what has provoked me to write to you. My kids have not spoken with each other about their experiences. But the older two have both come to me within the last month and told me that they believe the ghost is not attached to the house but attached to them personally because they have experienced these issues at different houses. Also they have both mentioned they felt it was both a male and female entity. I was talking about this to my mother and she brought up some things I didn't remember - when I was a child and a young adult I experienced similar things. Items moving, lost and found items, an entity touching my mother, inanimate objects moving (yes we could visually see them) and I was able as a child to look at it and say "stop that" and it stopped. I also know my father was able to see spirits and that he and I were oddly linked by - dreams and emotions but then that is another story.

Now - I don't want the world to know these things; I know people will say/think we are a family of freaks. I am pretty comfortable with "other than worldly" influences in my life so I am not asking for an exorcism and anything like that. I think I really would just like to understand better. Actually I just want to know if there is something that follows us around, or if we are just collectively sensitive to the things that are around everywhere in the world. I am curious about similarities in experiences between myself and my children and between different locations. (missing/reappearing items, sound of water, female voice) etc. And why sometimes the experiences are strong and frequent and other times are not so much.

I'd taken Dynishka to my mother's for a weekend visit. I'm not sure on the year, but I'll guess around 1987. Mom lived in Iowa. Dynishka and me were visiting from San Francisco.

For years I'd promised Dynishka I'd someday take her for a trek through my 'haunted' neighborhood. This particular time she held me to it.

We began by heading north up mom's street, which meant we were heading up a rather steep hill. At the top of the hill we crossed to the opposite side of the road, then entered a yard.

It was quite dark. As I groped to find familiar paths from my childhood, we stepped over plant material that felt spongy, and I remember thinking things had changed since last I'd made the neighborhood rounds. The yards there, in the old neighborhood, are massive, with backyards the size of football fields or better.

Finally we'd got (trespassed heh) to the back of said property, and there found a lovely little bridge crossing a small creek ... then a short jaunt and we were on another path that lead through the next yard, then on to the street north of mom's.

We headed west, past dark homes resting in ample yards ... toward the 'S' curve in the road. At the lower half of the 'S' - toward the north - was the house with the totem pole.

Ah, the totem pole.

Le'me tell ya, this thing is weird. It doesn't stand upright, but is instead curved like a huge doughnut sunk half in the ground. It felt cold like ceramic or plaster, but I now guess it's composition to be of fiberglass. It was 'decorated' (I use the term loosely) with an array of oddities; a huge ear (about a meter in length), the face of a King off a deck of cards (unsure which suit), a large brain (perhaps 5x human brain size), um ... mushrooms, gosh, I can't remember it all! The thing looked like an acid trip realized in an incredibly weird sculpture. (I'll try to get down there this summer and take photos ~ assuming it's still there.) We stayed for just a short time. I was leery of the large dog I knew to have patrolled the property some time before. Though it was creepy, we hadn't yet felt haunted.

We made off for the church grounds. Once there, we lay down in the parking lot to catch a glimpse of the expanse of stars above.

That parking lot, historically, was always where I would acquire (if you will) 'the littles' ... the little folk, who then would always follow myself and my guest on the remainder of our explore. (More stories for another time?)

That night, though we thought we'd heard 'the littles' tell-tale whispers and giggles ... something else seemed to pervade. Not a sound, but a sense. Of darkness ... no, worse. It felt malignant. Vile. Evil.

Dynishka and me sat bolt upright and instinctively began to scoot slowly so our backs were together as there we sat.

The 'little's' whispers and giggles were stifled as birds and crickets before a storm. The silence was obvious and unnerving.

We moved to stand, and a growl met us. Though let me explain, it was less a sound than a feeling. Make sense?

We decided we should flee ... and I decided to cut through the Robinson's ... a densely wooded yard that opens to a field which leads back to mom's street.

The growl moved in front of us. Mind you, I could physically see nothing, but the presence was unmistakable.

I gently touched Dynishka on the shoulder, indicating the direction of our next move with a nod of my head ... but I didn't stray my eyes from the spot my senses told me was occupied by the *Thing*.

Suddenly I burst off toward the road, not even wasting time to go through the Robinson's ... instead we went through the Kouskie's yard ... long as the other yards but not as densely treed. As we moved toward the back ... perhaps 100 feet from the house in the side yard, the *Thing* tried to get in front of us. By now, it was making such a racket I thought I'd go mad. I can't tell you now the sounds, I can't make my mind remember them. In fact, I wasn't sure at all if the sounds were in my head only and not out of it. Then I noticed from the corner of my eye that lights had flickered on in the Kouskie's house, and heads could be seen peering out toward us through assorted windows.

Somehow, knowing that others could hear (or sense?) the *Thing* terrified me even more. I'd ducked down to hide next to a truck-topper (sans truck), which had tall grasses all around it where the lawn mower couldn't reach. Dynishka dropped to her knees next to me, gasping. "What is that?" she screamed in a whisper.

For a moment, I didn't feel the *Thing* impeding our path. I took the moment to bolt. I hate to say it, but I was literally out to save myself ... not even stopping for a millisecond to check that Dynishka was surviving!

I'd got to the gate that separated the Kouskie's yard from mom's neighbor-across-the-street's yard. I was freaking out and not having an easy time with the latch, when again the *Thing* loudly made it's presence known. Finally the gate was open and we were sprinting across the expansive lawn toward the driveway ~ a long and winding drive. The formal garden surrounding the house is separated from the front by a long line of trees, which run parallel with the creek (mentioned earlier in my story). As we approached said line of trees running so fast nary a step touched the ground, we awoke what sounded like hundreds of sleeping birds, who all at once fled from the trees screeching and making a horrid sound.

Cacophonous.

Then I wasn't sure if it were birds I heard, or the thing which pursued us, or both. I should mention here ... outside of abject fear, there also seemed to be some weird time/space thing happening. I can't explain or describe it, everything just felt twisted and not real. Perhaps it was just terror.

Finally, out of the trees and making our way toward the front fence/gate (imposing gothic-looking black-iron jobby that was closed argh!) we didn't break step until we hit the gate and made to climb over. I felt as the men in "The Omen" who were running from the evil dogs in the cemetery, and had the terrible thought I'd impale myself!

I managed not to. We ran across the street toward the warm glow of the lights lining my mother's front walk, then could detect the comforting sound of my dog Benjy barking in the backyard.

We ran up the drive and crashed through the back gate to collapse on lawn chairs ... panting and laughing-almost-crying and trying to get a word out.

As we got our thoughts (translate as sh*t) together, and could finally talk, we sat and related in hushed voices what each the other had felt and seen etc. As we did so, we could hear that my horses in the pasture behind mom's house had come up to the fence [which kept them out of the backyard proper]. My dog trotted down the stone path to say hi to them, and we followed. Eventually, we stood at the fence, petting and cooing to the animals. Before me was Zeus, our largest stallion.

I remember now, hindsight, that he was acting odd (they all were). Skittish. But at the time, I guess I was trying to make things as normal as possible, and I shook it off.

Presently, Zeus took a long step back, an awkward movement, because he did so with only one leg. He then looked straight at me (into my eyes? Dunno, too dark) and commenced to urinating (?!), a long and drawn-out piss. His stance was, how shall I say, almost threatening, like he was a bull preparing to charge!

As Dynishka and me (and poor Benjy) were witnessing all this, the *Thing* dropped down on us from above. There were no trees directly above, just an 'old fashioned' type electrical line. It dropped to the ground directly between Zeus and me, but on *my* side of the fence. When I say it dropped, I mean, we could hear it ... feel the thud reverberate through the ground at our feet (we were all standing very close ... within a 3-4 foot circle).

Again, let me remind you I could physically see nothing, but my brain ... attempted to create a mass in the general vicinity of the *Thing* ... still I seriously don't remember physically seeing anything.

Anyway, the horses, including Zeus, erupted into wild neighing, bucking and kicking, then scattered as if wolves were after them.

Absolutely speechless, I looked at Dynishka, my mind groping for any sort of reasoning. Benjy broke me of my reverie (though I doubt it lasted more than a few seconds). Benjy was barking and making for the house. Again, we followed him.

The flight was excruciating.

For a moment, I could not see the house nor back porch, our supposed safety. Instead, I saw myself from behind running in panic, as though I saw through it's eyes.

We made it to the porch, Benjy was already inside via his own doggy-passage through the backdoor. I was tempted to jump through it myself, but my higher logic convinced me to use the doorknob instead. Dynishka and me didn't stop until we'd run to the front of the house ... to the front and formal living room (used only when mom has guests). Once there, we were oddly calmed. Collected. Moving pointedly.

I went to the secretary in the corner and removed a pen and paper. Dynishka switched on the stereo and retrieved a bottle of merlot from the wine cabinet. I sat on the sofa, pen in hand, with a mind to write of our experience. Dynishka sat on the floor near the serving/coffee table and poured us both a glass of wine. Though out of breath, we refused to show it. We were fine. My cats, one-by-one, began to saunter into the room ~ noticing that we were out-of-sorts, but not wanting us to think they cared enough to show any concern.

Just when everything was beginning to feel all right, a huge catfight erupted under the sofa upon which I sat. I mean, you could see fur flying out from below, and of course you know how awful is that sound! There was no doubt in my mind (at that time at least) my cats were fighting the *Thing* right under my caboose!

Now that's where the story ends. I know Dynishka and me took that bottle of wine to my bedroom where we sat with every single light on (including closet lights). We did not speak further of the incident that night. We simply waited for the sun, and thankfully the wait was uneventful.

I did eventually finish penning the whole story (by hand, somewhere in the region of 20 pages front and back). I held on to it for many *many* years, too. Though now, since I bought my house in '98 August ... I have been unable to locate the sheets, alas, I've done my best in this retelling.