Haunting

I’ve had two experiences that I would call ‘supernatural.’ There have been many frights and weird things, but only those two have been truly odd. Though, of course, there are always explanations.

The first was at my weekend job. It’s in a big old house, about 20 staff members. I’m there alone on the weekends monitoring special events. A caretaker handyman in suit and tie.

It’s pretty much a universal belief, with all employees past and present, that the house is haunted. This ranges from “bad feelings” to people who were “pursued” by an “angry male presence” and pushed down the stairs.

For many years, the ghosts were female. No floating figures and what have you – just the “presence,” and voices.

The house was built in the 1920’s, and only one family lived there. Though they had servants and what not. The matriarch had a bunch of kids – two girls and a boy – and then willed the house to my employers in the 60’s, leaving behind an angry son and well cared for girls. The son’s a fruitbasket and has a restraining order that bars him from the property. During the weekend events, it was common for him to show up with a weapon, or just raving drunk. That’s not happened in years, but it tops the list of things I (and my co-workers) need to watch for when monitoring events.

As far as I know, the girls are alive. Yet the second most common ghostly complaint is overhearing an argument between two women. The matriarch and a servant, maybe? The argument is never clear.

There are three common complaints. The first is the old slamming doors, creaking floorboards, and lights doing odd things. I encounter all of that almost weekly during the event season. The events are in eight hour shifts (which translates into ten hours, because people are idiots), and I volunteer for as many nighttime events as possible so I can steal mass quantities of alcohol under cover of darkness. Last one off the property and all… I also like being alone. So at one, two, or three AM – whenever I’m able to get out – it never fails that weird shit goes on. Lights will flick out on you, doors will slam deep in the house, and there have been several occasions where I could swear I heard running. But we’re talking about a house that’s 90 years old and in poor condition. I’ve watched mystery doors slam. They’re just not set right, and the sudden silence that follows an event and the mayhem of the caterering staff breaking everything down, is eerie by nature. The doors are slamming all the time. The creaking is going on all the time. You’ll hear it at the much less frightening 8am, and we all know that no self respecting ghost haunts in the mornings.

Having worked intimately with the electrical system in the house – and, even for a casual stranger glancing at the fuse boxes in the basement – flickering lights are no mystery.

Though all the groundskeepers (there have been four since I started working there) have talked about wild things like all the lights in the old mansion switching on and off in sequence. The groundskeeper lives on the property in what used to be the old carriage house, and occasionally patrols the property at night. The house is alarmed, and the groundskeeper knows when it’s turned off, so in those late night hours there can’t be anyone inside running through all the rooms fucking around with light switches.

I’ve not witnessed that and, of course, doubt it until I see it.

That second most common event is where I come in. The women arguing. Many employees have heard the argument, almost always centered at the top of the stairs to the third floor. The stairs make a 90 degree turn, so you can’t see up there.

I was locking up the house in the early AM after a wedding when I heard the argument, and immediately assumed it to be a couple of wayward guests who’d decided to stow away. So I went to the foot of the third floor stairs. I couldn’t make out the words – it was just senseless shouting. I called up, hey, we’re closed. The shouting stopped instantly.

By then, of course, knowing that I was pretty much alone in a big mansion on a poorly lit 40 acre wooded lot in the middle of the sound-asleep suburbs, I had to face the old problem. There in the perfect horror movie setting, should I go and investigate the scary voices and funny sounds?

Well, of course, it’s my job. Clear the house. Because if someone trips that fucking alarm, the police arrive in about 45 seconds with machine guns. That’s happened to me twice, and it is Not Funny. They get you on the ground with a knee in your neck before they ask any questions.

I turned on all the lights, sucked in a breath, and then ran screaming up the stairs… Nothing. All doors locked. No sign of anything.

So then I ran screaming downstairs, set the alarm, and locked up. Fuck me.

The third most common complaint is the one I’m most skeptical of: The physical confrontation with whatever inhabits the mansion.

The weekend job is what I call a “housewife job.” It’s a little non profit organization run by a bunch of lonely women who work there constantly. Show up at any point during the day on any day and there they are. I’ve opened up the house at 7am for a Sunday event, only to find half a dozen sad housewives working away at their little jobs. We’re talking a few thousand members and 20 staff people. There’s nothing that requires you to work more than a 40 hour week.

These housewives, of course, have very little social awareness. They work all the time playing Wolfenstein on ancient computers, or are home being quietly beaten to death by their lawyer husbands. So they’re prone to exaggerations and weird temper tantrums. It’s like working with children. Thankfully, my weekend job doesn’t bring me in contact with the regular staff. But when I used to work there full time? Oh, Jesus…

So when these women are pursued down the halls by angry spirits, I take the stories with a grain of salt.

None have actually seen anything, but there’s an awful lot of shoulder tapping and hair pulling. That spirit is said to be a child. There’s no actual history in the house to back it up, as the kids are all still alive, but okay. My favorite is the male presence. Most commonly associated with the master bedroom and the main stairway in the great hall. The child/woman spirit inhabits the servant’s quarters at the end of the house, and the third floor, as well as the Education office (which was a suite of bedrooms).

The male spirit shouts, sometimes. One lady said she was shouted out of the main office (which was a sort of sitting room), and another lady claims to have been pushed down the stairs. The third male presence story I’ve heard is a girl who was angrily “pushed out of the house.” She claims that she felt two hands on her back, and they propelled her from the Education office, down the hall, down the stairs, through the Great Hall, and then out the front door.

I pray for that spirit to come and kick me out about halfway through every shift.

My second supernatural encounter was in Atlanta, GA. My dad died in January of 07, and I stayed in his house the night afterwards. I was flying back to DC the next day. My dad’s house had an alarm – just a motion detector in the main hallway – but it hadn’t ever been turned on, according to the neighbor. It was there when dad bought the house five years before. Well, you know where I’m going with this. At 3am that night, the motion detector alarm went off. I was jerked awake flailing wildly, then went bursting out into the hallway (because I’m smart). Nothing. And the alarm goes silent. Back to the bedroom and, a few minutes later, it goes off again. I build up the courage to search the house, and find nothing. This repeats several times for 15 minutes until I get well and truly spooked. Up till then, the alarm was going on and off, but it went off steadily at that point, so I went to the control panel. No power, as I had been told. I ripped off the faceplate thinking I’ll just tear all the wires out of the wall… Yep, they weren’t connected. Nothing was connected.

I piled into the rental and went to a hotel. That was the last I was in my dad’s house.

He died in massive debt, because he’s a real fuck up, so I walked away from the estate. I have no idea where anything went, or what happened to the house, but that night still puts the fear in me. More than the women arguing at the old mansion.

In the end, though, I’m still somewhat disappointed. Okay, I’ve had supernatural experiences. That’s all there is? Scaredy ghosts who shut up when I tell them the house is closed and motion detector games? Come on! Where’s Zuul when you need him?