Ever Had a Ghost Hitch a Ride With You?

Onward and upward we go, on to my next leg of the paranormal crazy train that became my life! As mentioned in my previous post, I had quite an interesting visit to not only a historic hotel, but one that brought out the “Linda Blair” in me…can you say PEA SOUP?

I left off on our drive AWAY from the Crescent Hotel, which BTW, was featured on Ghost Hunters, the show on Sci-Fi (not our drive…the Crescent Hotel). Actually, so was Carroll Heath, our tour guide, but this was three or four years AFTER my experience there.

We drove back to the cabin we were staying in, which was so nice! They were new, sat on the edge of a mountainside and overlooked a beautiful lake. I felt fine, even after scarfing the McDonalds we had stopped for. It was our last night there, and I wanted to stay up late and see if the raccoons we had been told about would come to the back door to snack on the assortment of goodies that we had left for them. Hubby went to bed, while I read in the living room. It had one of those dimmer switch lights, which I had turned down low, so as not to disturb Kel.

Suddenly the lights went out! I rolled my eyes and got up, turning the dial a bit higher, cursing dimmer switches. About two minutes later, out they go again. Gritting my teeth, I felt my way back to the switch, and turned the darn thing ALL the way up. I sat back down, and picked up my book, but before I could read a full sentence….you guessed it, out go the lights. Third time’s the charm for me; I just left the stupid thing off, put my book down, and awaited the raccoons.

Now, after reading my previous story, you may be smacking yourself on the head, wondering why I didn’t run screaming out the door. I seriously thought it was a malfunctioning light. I am NOT an alarmist, and although I do have an imagination to rival most, I only use it when I write. That, and I so wanted to see the darn raccoons!

I wasn’t disappointed, two HUGE raccoons showed up, sitting on their hind quarters, clutching pieces of bread in their tiny hands and eating their midnight buffet. I got Kel out of bed to watch them, and I was surprised how BIG they were…I think they were extremely well fed by the guests.

The night ended with no more odd occurrences, at least none that I noticed. We both got up the next morning, dreading the long drive back to Oklahoma. While I finished packing in the bedroom, Kel was loading up the truck outside. I was busy, and didn’t even realize that I could hear the fan running from the bathroom vent, until it suddenly clicked off. I remember standing at the end of the bed and looking towards the bathroom thinking Kel must have somehow snuck by me. I called out to him. No answer. I turned and went out of the room, through the living room, and out the door. Sure enough, there was Kel, loading the truck.

“Did you leave the fan on in the bathroom?” I yelled to him.
“Yeah, sorry, I forgot to turn it off.”
“Was it on a timer or something? It just clicked off.” I replied, shifting my weight from one foot to another, not wanting to go back in alone.

Seeing my discomfort, Kel left the truck and came over. I followed behind him back into the cabin. He went straight into the bathroom. The switch was off. There was no timer.

“Are you sure you didn’t turn it off?” He asked me, after fiddling with the switch a few times.
“Of course I didn’t! I told you that I was in the bedroom packing when I heard the switch click and the fan stop.”

He just shook his head, shrugged his shoulders, and continued to get ready to leave. I shadowed his EVERY move! I was NOT going to be left alone in that cabin by myself again. Yes, now I became a chicken, a big one, I think I clucked a few times for good measure.

I breathed a sigh of relief once we got on the road. I even relaxed a bit, which was hard to do driving through the mountainous Ozark region. I am scared of heights, and some of the drop-offs next to the highway were pretty steep. I tried to ignore the beautiful scenery and read some more, at least until Kel just about ran off the road!

“What the hell?!” Kel said, while straining his head to look behind him into the backseat of his truck.

It was my turn to look at him as if he had lost his mind.

“I just saw a man sitting in the back seat, Terri. I swear I did, but there's no one there.”

Mmmhmmmm. Some vacation! We were both coming back not only paranoid, but now Kel was seeing things. Bad sign. No more vacations for us for a while.

The rest of the trip was uneventful, and we were both happy to be home, and glad to see the kids (we already had his, mine, and ours BEFORE we were legally married). By the time we dropped into the bed, it was late that night, the kids were all asleep, and we were exhausted. We always left the light on in the bathroom, so that it illuminated the hallway. It wasn’t as bright as the hall light, and the kids often got up in the night.

I was almost asleep, when the house was engulfed in darkness. I could feel Kel jump out of bed.

“It was probably one of the kids just going to the bathroom hon.” I said, from the comfort and security of my side of the bed.
“I’ll just check on them.” So off he trots down the hall, first turning on the bathroom light. I watch from my bed. Our room was at the end of the hall, which gave me a full view of the nightly bed check; first the girl’s room, then my son’s.

Finding them all snug in their beds and asleep, he then proceeded to examine the light switch in OUR bathroom. At this point, I get up. The longer I watch him trying to turn the switch half on to see if it could be done, the more nervous we both get. We start to discuss the lights from the cabin, then the exhaust fan, and then of course the man in the backseat that wasn’t there came up. Within a few minutes, we had convinced ourselves that we were screwed with a capital “G” as in ghost, boogey man, poltergeist, and any other word that may or may not contain a “G”.

I was so upset that I actually called the ghost tour place and left a frantic message on their recorder, claiming to have “brought something home with us” and “not knowing what to do about it”.

Needless to say, we slept little that night. By dawn, I was overjoyed at the sight of the glorious sun. The light swept away the fear that had gripped us both, not only fears of the unknown, but fear for our children. Hey, who hasn’t seen Poltergeist, or Amityville Horror?

That afternoon following snack-time, the pantry light was left on. Any parents with small children know what a battle it is to get them to turn off lights after they have turned them on. Kel lined them up and asked them who had left the light on. Being in total “parent mode”, we looked at my son with confusion when he started laughing. Had he lost his mind? What the heck?
“Did you turn on the pantry light, Tommy?”
“No, I turned OFF the light.” He responded between giggles.
“What light?” I eyed him suspiciously.
“The bathroom light; last night.” He said between laughs. Like that was going to make up for NOT turning….WAIT! Did he just say last night???????????

Okay, I’ll admit it, I wanted to KILL him right then. That little turd turned off the bathroom light the night before. Our “ghost” was an eight year old boy, not only that, but he KNEW! He had heard all of it! He was worse than a ghost, he was EVIL I say!

Talk about feeling STUPID! Yeah, we did.

You might think that my story would end there. If only it had…

Until next time, keep the lights on and avoid ghost hang-outs, you might have uninvited house guests…I did.