{"id":82,"date":"2008-05-08T12:42:17","date_gmt":"2008-05-08T17:42:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.greatsociety.org\/?p=82"},"modified":"2018-10-31T12:45:26","modified_gmt":"2018-10-31T16:45:26","slug":"haunting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/?p=82","title":{"rendered":"Haunting"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve had two experiences that I would call \u2018supernatural.\u2019 <\/span>There have been many frights and weird things, but only those two have been truly odd. <\/span>Though, of course, there are always explanations.<\/p>\n


\nThe first was at my weekend job. <\/span>It\u2019s in a big old house, about 20 staff members. <\/span>I\u2019m there alone on the weekends monitoring special events. <\/span>A caretaker handyman in suit and tie.\n<\/p>\n

It\u2019s pretty much a universal belief, with all employees past and present, that the house is haunted. <\/span>This ranges from \u201cbad feelings\u201d to people who were \u201cpursued\u201d by an \u201cangry male presence\u201d and pushed down the stairs. <\/span><\/p>\n

For many years, the ghosts were female. <\/span>No floating figures and what have you \u2013 just the \u201cpresence,\u201d and voices.<\/p>\n

The house was built in the 1920\u2019s, and only one family lived there. <\/span>Though they had servants and what not. <\/span>The matriarch had a bunch of kids \u2013 two girls and a boy \u2013 and then willed the house to my employers in the 60\u2019s, leaving behind an angry son and well cared for girls. <\/span>The son\u2019s a fruitbasket and has a restraining order that bars him from the property. <\/span>During the weekend events, it was common for him to show up with a weapon, or just raving drunk. <\/span>That\u2019s not happened in years, but it tops the list of things I (and my co-workers) need to watch for when monitoring events.<\/p>\n

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

There are three common complaints. <\/span>The first is the old slamming doors, creaking floorboards, and lights doing odd things. <\/span>I encounter all of that almost weekly during the event season. <\/span>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. <\/span>Last one off the property and all\u2026 I also like being alone. <\/span>So at one, two, or three AM \u2013 whenever I\u2019m able to get out \u2013 it never fails that weird shit goes on. <\/span>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. <\/span>But we\u2019re talking about a house that\u2019s 90 years old and in poor condition. <\/span>I\u2019ve watched mystery doors slam. <\/span>They\u2019re 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. <\/span>The doors are slamming all the time. <\/span>The creaking is going on all the time. <\/span>You\u2019ll hear it at the much less frightening 8am, and we all know that no self respecting ghost haunts in the mornings.<\/p>\n

Having worked intimately with the electrical system in the house \u2013 and, even for a casual stranger glancing at the fuse boxes in the basement \u2013 flickering lights are no mystery.<\/p>\n

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. <\/span>The groundskeeper lives on the property in what used to be the old carriage house, and occasionally patrols the property at night. <\/span>The house is alarmed, and the groundskeeper knows when it\u2019s turned off, so in those late night hours there can\u2019t be anyone inside running through all the rooms fucking around with light switches.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve not witnessed that and, of course, doubt it until I see it.<\/p>\n

That second most common event is where I come in. <\/span>The women arguing. <\/span>Many employees have heard the argument, almost always centered at the top of the stairs to the third floor. <\/span>The stairs make a 90 degree turn, so you can\u2019t see up there. <\/span><\/p>\n

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\u2019d decided to stow away. <\/span>So I went to the foot of the third floor stairs. <\/span>I couldn\u2019t make out the words \u2013 it was just senseless shouting. <\/span>I called up, hey, we\u2019re closed. <\/span>The shouting stopped instantly.<\/p>\n

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. <\/span>There in the perfect horror movie setting, should I go and investigate the scary voices and funny sounds? <\/span><\/p>\n

Well, of course, it\u2019s my job. <\/span>Clear the house. <\/span>Because if someone trips that fucking alarm, the police arrive in about 45 seconds with machine guns. <\/span>That\u2019s happened to me twice, and it is Not Funny. <\/span>They get you on the ground with a knee in your neck before they ask any questions. <\/span><\/p>\n

I turned on all the lights, sucked in a breath, and then ran screaming up the stairs\u2026 Nothing. <\/span>All doors locked. <\/span>No sign of anything.<\/p>\n

So then I ran screaming downstairs, set the alarm, and locked up. <\/span>Fuck me.<\/p>\n

The third most common complaint is the one I\u2019m most skeptical of: <\/span>The physical confrontation with whatever inhabits the mansion. <\/span><\/p>\n

The weekend job is what I call a \u201chousewife job.\u201d <\/span>It\u2019s a little non profit organization run by a bunch of lonely women who work there constantly. <\/span>Show up at any point during the day on any day and there they are. <\/span>I\u2019ve opened up the house at 7am for a Sunday event, only to find half a dozen sad housewives working away at their little jobs. <\/span>We\u2019re talking a few thousand members and 20 staff people. <\/span>There\u2019s nothing that requires you to work more than a 40 hour week. <\/span><\/p>\n

These housewives, of course, have very little social awareness. <\/span>They work all the time playing Wolfenstein on ancient computers, or are home being quietly beaten to death by their lawyer husbands. <\/span>So they\u2019re prone to exaggerations and weird temper tantrums. <\/span>It\u2019s like working with children. <\/span>Thankfully, my weekend job doesn\u2019t bring me in contact with the regular staff. <\/span>But when I used to work there full time? <\/span>Oh, Jesus\u2026<\/p>\n

So when these women are pursued down the halls by angry spirits, I take the stories with a grain of salt. <\/span><\/p>\n

None have actually seen anything, but there\u2019s an awful lot of shoulder tapping and hair pulling. <\/span>That spirit is said to be a child. <\/span>There\u2019s no actual history in the house to back it up, as the kids are all still alive, but okay. <\/span>My favorite is the male presence. <\/span>Most commonly associated with the master bedroom and the main stairway in the great hall. <\/span>The child\/woman spirit inhabits the servant\u2019s quarters at the end of the house, and the third floor, as well as the Education office (which was a suite of bedrooms). <\/span><\/p>\n

The male spirit shouts, sometimes. <\/span>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. <\/span>The third male presence story I\u2019ve heard is a girl who was angrily \u201cpushed out of the house.\u201d <\/span>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.<\/p>\n

I pray for that spirit to come and kick me out about halfway through every shift. <\/span><\/p>\n

My second supernatural encounter was in <\/st1>Atlanta<\/st1>, GA.<\/st1> <\/span>My dad died in January of 07, and I stayed in his house the night afterwards. <\/span>I was flying back to DC the next day. <\/span>My dad\u2019s house had an alarm \u2013 just a motion detector in the main hallway \u2013 but it hadn\u2019t ever been turned on, according to the neighbor. <\/span>It was there when dad bought the house five years before. <\/span>Well, you know where I\u2019m going with this. <\/span>At 3am that night, the motion detector alarm went off. <\/span>I was jerked awake flailing wildly, then went bursting out into the hallway (because I\u2019m smart). <\/span>Nothing. <\/span>And the alarm goes silent. <\/span>Back to the bedroom and, a few minutes later, it goes off again. <\/span>I build up the courage to search the house, and find nothing. <\/span>This repeats several times for 15 minutes until I get well and truly spooked. <\/span>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. <\/span>No power, as I had been told. <\/span>I ripped off the faceplate thinking I\u2019ll just tear all the wires out of the wall\u2026 Yep, they weren\u2019t connected. <\/span>Nothing was connected. <\/span><\/p>\n

I piled into the rental and went to a hotel. <\/span>That was the last I was in my dad\u2019s house.<\/p>\n

He died in massive debt, because he\u2019s a real fuck up, so I walked away from the estate. <\/span>I have no idea where anything went, or what happened to the house, but that night still puts the fear in me. <\/span>More than the women arguing at the old mansion.<\/p>\n

In the end, though, I\u2019m still somewhat disappointed. <\/span>Okay, I\u2019ve had supernatural experiences. <\/span>That\u2019s all there is? <\/span>Scaredy ghosts who shut up when I tell them the house is closed and motion detector games? <\/span>Come on! <\/span>Where\u2019s Zuul when you need him?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve had two experiences that I would call \u2018supernatural.\u2019 There have been many frights and weird things, but only those two have been truly odd. Though, of course, there are always explanations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[231],"class_list":["post-82","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rants","tag-ghosts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=82"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1164,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82\/revisions\/1164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=82"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=82"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=82"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}