What you are about to read is totally REAL and creepier than a Hollywood horror movie. Welcome to Scary Story Week on The Stir ...
I lived in the old white house with the weeping willow tree in the front yard from the time I was about 7 years old until 10 years old. The house was two stories, large, and had been separated into several apartments. It was on Cape Cod. My family and I lived there year round.
I'd already seen a few strange things in that house -- once I had been across the street and walking home when I saw what looked like a bed sheet drying on the clothes line in the backyard. As I got closer, however, the "bed sheet" began to move, and floated up and across the yard and away.
But it wasn't until one night when I was woken up out of a sound by a marching band that I became convinced the house was haunted.
There was a common staircase and hallway outside of my bedroom door on the second floor. When the door downstairs opened in the wee hours of the night, I opened my eyes and was startled to hear the clomping of many footsteps. And then ... the strangest sound ever. I heard a marching band begin playing. I sat bolt upright in bed as the band -- a clamoring, clanging cacophony of drums, French horns, and cymbals -- began to march up the stairs.
My heart was practically thumping out of my chest. I kept waiting for my mother to come rushing into my room, asking what the noise was. I waited for my little sister, who slept in the bunk bed below me, to wake up and ask the same question. Meanwhile, the clomping of footsteps and the banging of the band came closer towards my bedroom door.
And then suddenly it occurred to me. Maybe I was dreaming. I remembered hearing somewhere that if you thought you were dreaming and wanted to wake up, you should pinch yourself. So I stuck out my arm and pinched it as hard as I could.
The band played on.
By this time, I was paralyzed with fear. The band reached the top of the steps and raucously continued to play. My heart was going a mile a minute. And then, the footsteps turned. I heard the clomping of footsteps again, and the band began to work its way back down the stairs. The sound got progressively softer until the downstairs door opened, and out the band went, politely shutting the door behind it.
The next morning, I couldn't wait to ask everyone in the building about the marching band. Hadn't they heard it? Didn't it wake you up?
Naturally, everyone looked at me like I was insane -- or, being a kid, making up stories. To this day, I wonder if I was dreaming, or if I really heard a ghost marching band. Whoever they were, they certainly sounded like they were having a good time. That was one band determined to play on.
Have you ever heard something really odd and thought maybe it was a ghost?
Read yesterday's installment: A Ghost Tried to Hook Up With Me in a Hotel Room
Read last week's installment: I Saw Real Paranormal Activity on My Baby's Video Monitor
Image via zoetnet/Flickr
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Comments 2
Interesting story. I like that you consider that you could've been dreaming. I would like to know more about your experiences in that particular house and if this was a one time incident. residual haunting usually repeat much like a recording of time imprinted on an a particular location so if this was a one time thing I would go with "dream"..........just my thoughts.
When I was 14 I was car camping (not at a campground) with my aunt, uncle, sister and another teenagegirl in Canada. (We were from th U.S.) We were headed toward Alaska. We were under some trees just off the road near a small bridge. I awoke in the night to the sound of screeching tires, then a woman screaming "Oh no, oh no," then a splash, and the car taking off. I was terrified and didn't move or speak. I must have fallen back asleep, as I remember waking up in the morning. I told everyone, and they said they heard nothing. I couldn't believe it, because it had been so loud. We walked to the area I'd heard it coming from and found a suitcase of women's clothing, shoes and a few toys. The suitcase was open and the contents were strewn around. The weird thing, though, was that the things looked like they'd been there a long time, not from the night before. This was over 40 years ago, out in the middle of nowhere. I have always been "sensitive." Perhaps I was hearing something which had happened there at a different time.