This story takes place in my house. One night my mother and I were sitting on the couch watching a movie, and I caught a glimpse of something out the corner of my eye, I thought well it is nothing.

Then my mom turns and looks at me and says, “Did you see that?”

I said, “Well what did you see? I’ll tell you if I saw the same thing.”

She said, “I saw a woman dressed in white walking towards my room”.

I looked at her in shock and said, “That’s what I saw, but didn’t want to look stupid telling you.”

Then she went into her bedroom and when she opened the door she was face-to-face with a it and she kept walking and did not stop, and it disappeared, but the woman was not in there. We do not know where or who they were, we were scared.

I was 6 yrs old, my bedroom got moved down into the basement of my great aunt’s house.

Every night when my aunt and parents where asleep I would be wide awake watching (what I called) the woman in black walking up and down the basement steps, also pacing the hall upstairs, back and forth. She moved like a tape on rewind and fast-forward at the same time.

I would try to pull the covers over my head and go to sleep, sometimes I would manage to force myself to go to sleep and the woman in black would be there.

If I would stay up she would be taunting me, I would hear her whisper or sometimes she would scream like a banshee (but nobody would hear her except me).

She would say the meanest things; she would threaten to kill my parents, my aunt, and little sister. The woman in black would send me visuals in my dreams of her murdering my family.

One night in particular I was scared, I screamed and cried until my parents felt that I should have my bedroom back upstairs, next to my aunt’s bedroom.

I was ok after that, but when I would go walking in the hallway to go to the bathroom at night I would have to run down the hall. The woman in black left me alone after I was up out of the basement and in a safe room with the lamplight on.

When I went into my mid-teenage years I told my sister about the woman in black and she said that she saw the woman in black too (we both had the same bedroom). I thought she was messing with me because she was only three or four at the time, but she swears that she saw the woman in black. I did not even tell her that I heard that woman’s voice and my sister said that she heard the woman in black saying similar things to her. The woman told my little sister that she was going to be eaten.

Description of the “Woman in Black”: The woman in black was tall and frail, her skin was grey. She had a long black dress with white lace at the collar. She looked like some kind of witch but she had fangs and claws like a vampire.

The story of the “Woman in Black”: I had a dream that back in the old days (kind of like settler times) the woman in black had an abusive husband that treated her like a slave. One day she got sick and tired of his stuff so they had a fight. However, her outburst got her beat and thrown down a mineshaft. The woman laid down there suffering from broken bones and starvation. When she was not screaming for help she was cursing her husband and spitting on his future grave. She died in a rage.

If people do not want to believe me that is fine, but I know that it was all real.

My aunt lived near a grave yard and when the men would dig the graves she always sent them up some Kool-Aid to drink and sometimes sandwiches to eat. On one particular day there was a lady buried and she had some beautiful flowers and ribbons. My dad was out of town so we decided to spend the weekend with my aunt and make homemade fudge. My aunt and mother were talking about what a beautiful ribbon rug they could make when the caretaker got rid of the flowers. Well the more they talked about it the more anxious they become and decided after dark they would go up to the grave. While they were up there helping themselves to the ribbons a car drove by and they had to hide in the shadows of the grave. My mother accidentally rolled over on the grave and had a chill come over her and became afraid, so they left without getting all of the ribbons they originally wanted.

Later that evening, we were making fudge and all of us kids were helping my mom and aunt roll up the ribbons. All of a sudden my aunt screamed, “Oh my god, look in the window!” Talking about kids scattering we ran and hid under the beds and in the mist of us scurrying about my mom’s chair fell backwards and she hit her head. Well of course my aunt was teasing so she settled us all down and we went to bed. Later that night we awoke to the sound of scratching on the bathroom screen and we thought someone was trying to break in. My mom and aunt were afraid to get up. My mom decided she would go see what was making the noise. My aunt screamed and someone or something jumped on my back while I was in bed. I started screaming and soon all the kids were screaming and crying. Finally my aunt turned the lights on and checked my bedroom, the doors, and the windows; everything looked normal. So after a fashion we all went back to bed.

During the night a light snow fell and when my cousin opened the kitchen door to check out the snow a pool of fresh blood was outside the door. Well, my aunt decided it must have been from a hurt animal and thought no more about it. That evening she went to fetch the cigar box that held the rolled up ribbons and to her surprise the box was no where to be found. To this day we don’t know where the ribbons went or what caused the pool of blood. I’ve often wondered if it wasn’t the lady who took back what rightfully belonged to her.

Just this past month, I saw a really strange thing. I was sitting in my room, and I was lonely because my friends hadn’t called for days. After a few minutes the room got really cold, and I got scared. But no one was there. The temperature went back to normal, and I went to get a drink.

When I got back to my room, there was a boy who I never seen before. He had shaggy black hair, blue eyes, no shirt, black pants, and black socks. I asked him who he was, and he said “Oh, nobody.” He then disappeared. I had my parents locate and take me to the previous house owners. I mentioned him and they looked mighty sad. They said that was their son Adam, who died exactly a week before my family moved in. They said he was so upset about moving. I asked them how he died. They said that my room used to be a workout room and that he died from stress.

A few days ago, I saw him again, this time in the guest bedroom where I was cleaning. If I remember correctly, there use to be a bunk bed against the wall near the door where a shelf is now at. He was sitting on the shelf. He waved sadly and disappeared. I was freaked beyond words.

Then that night, I started to hear his voice in my head saying things like “Chocolate!” whenever I had chocolate near my bed. I keep hearing his voice today, and he seems like a guardian angel. I sometimes see him, and see him most in the guest bedroom closet.

Every year, the city park in Martinsburg, WV, fills to overflowing for its annual display of 4th of July fireworks. Today, the park is a wonderful green space with pavilions, picnic tables, miniature golf, and a swimming pool. During the Civil War, it was a large open space with a major freshwater source. Close to the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, the space was used as a camp by soldiers in gray and blue throughout the war. During those frequent times when the armies fought for control of the town, men died violently in the park.

A few years ago, one extended family arrived at the park several hours before the fireworks were to begin. They wanted just the right spot to spread their blankets and enjoy the goodies in their picnic basket. Altogether, there were twelve of them; five adults and seven children. After dinner, the children left the picnic site to roam through the gathering crowd while the adults lazed on the blankets and ignited a couple of firecrackers of their own.

The grandfather was the first to notice the smell. He turned his head in the direction of the offending odor and saw a teenage boy leaning on a nearby tree. The teenager didn’t seem to notice the family but, the family certainly noticed him and the pungent odor that seemed to be wafting off of him. They described the odor in various ways; old sweat, horse flop, rotting garbage, or the smell of rancid meat.

All agreed it was such an awful smell, they weren’t going to put up with it a minute longer. The father yelled at the boy saying, “Get out of here, Boy, you’re stinking up the place!” The teenage boy continued to lean against the tree, ignoring what he must have heard.

Outraged, the mother said, “That’s it! I’m going to get a cop!” And, off she charged with a full head of steam.

In a few minutes, she returned with a uniformed policeman. “He’s right over there,” she said as she pointed dramatically to the tree where she had last seen the smelly teenage boy. He was gone and her normally loud and rowdy family was utterly silent.

“We were all watching that kid,” said the grandfather to no one in particular. “He just disappeared in front of our eyes!” The older man turned to the police officer and said, “I know you won’t believe us but I’m pretty sure we just saw a ghost!”

That night, the police at the park received two other complaints about a foul-smelling teenage boy. He was never found.

The next day, I met with one of the officers who had been at the park and responded to one of the complaints. “Everyone who smelled and saw that boy described him the about the same way; 5 foot tall, torn brown pants, filthy red checked shirt, suspenders, no shoes, filthy feet, and a weird flat top cap with a small brim in the front. Do you think he could have been a Confederate soldier?”

Yes, indeed, officer!

Confederate soldiers were often ragged. Soap was unavailable. Caps with “weird flat tops and small brims” were worn by Confederate soldiers. They were called kepis.

In the summer of 1986, my family moved into a parsonage in Logan, where my father was to become the new minister of a church there. The previous minister, a Reverend Rush, had passed away. As a tall man, he was unable to go upstairs to use the bathroom in his last days, so another bathroom was installed next to the dining room on the first floor. The water heater was on the other side of the wall. All four bedrooms were upstairs, and the living and dining rooms and kitchen were downstairs. I was in college in Oklahoma at the time, but I visited my family during the holidays.

The first experience with the paranormal occurred one afternoon when I was away at school. My mother had gone upstairs to take a nap, while the rest of the family remained downstairs in the living room to watch TV. Several minutes later, my mother came downstairs and said, “Who keeps opening my door and looking in at me?” No one knew who she was talking about. The only description my mother gave of the intruder was that of a tall man. But no one had been upstairs.

My sister also had an encounter with something inexplicable. Night after night she complained to my father that someone was walking around in the overhead attic. My father, a non-believer when it came to the supernatural, dismissed my sister’s claim by explaining that she was probably hearing squirrels. My sister said, “Since when do squirrels walk on two feet?” Still, no investigation was made. Finally, one night my sister had enough. The walking was keeping her up, so she shouted for it to stop. It did.

During the summer of 1992, I taught an English composition class at the local community college. My father’s office was downstairs in the basement. One day I was down there by myself grading papers. My sister and my father had gone car-shopping together. No one else was home. While I was reading a student’s essay, I heard someone come through the back door on the first floor. Then I heard these heavy footsteps walking right over my head, which was where the dining room was located. Thinking my sister and my father had come back from car-shopping, I went upstairs to ask them if they’d found a car. But there was no one on the first floor. I called up the stairs but got no response. Then I looked through the kitchen window, which looked out on the car port. No car. That’s when I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Apparently, I’d heard the heavy tread of the late Reverend Rush.

Things seemed to come to a head in October of that same year. I was away in California at the time. What happened can either be explained as normal or as paranormal, but it almost cost my family their lives. Apparently, something went wrong with the water heater. It overheated and exploded, taking about a third of the house with it. Luckily, my family was unharmed, but their lives were forever changed.

The parsonage went through extensive repairs, and although my family moved back into it, things were never the same. Why, after having been there for six years, did the water heater suddenly explode? Just the day before the explosion occurred, a parishioner from the church had inspected the water heater and told my father that everything was all right. I mean, we’re talking about the same water heater on the other side of the wall of the bathroom that had been built for Reverend Rush. Coincidence? Even today, I don’t know.

My parents have since moved into another house outside of Logan. Since they moved, I haven’t been by the old parsonage, and perhaps it’s for the best. I hope that whoever moves into that house won’t encounter the same kind of phenomena my family and I did. But until someone does move in, I’m curious to know if there’s already somebody inside, waiting.

All through my life I have been very “sensitive” to paranormal phenomena. As a very young child (2-4 yrs old), I would play outside and hear my name being called from the woods around Red House Hill. I always insisted that I played with “people” in the woods. My mom and even later me, agreed that it was just my imagination.

When I was five years old we moved to an old house in Hurricane. It was a very strange house, my bedroom had one window on the right side, and a boarded up window on the adjoining wall. In the hallway outside my door there was a heating/air conditioning vent, with three little stairs leading down (no one could ever fit down there). My grandmothers room was centered in the middle of the house, with two doors and no windows. The front door that we never used had no doorknob, only a dead bolt you had to use a key to unlock from the inside or out. In addition to a normal semi creepy basement, and also another basement under the garage with stone slabs extending from three of the walls. Let me tell you, it was definitely a stereotypical haunted house.

For years we all saw things and never told one another. About a week before we moved out we were sitting outside telling stories, and we all started admitting to things we had seen. On more than one occasion my brother, nephew, nieces, and I had all seen a woman in a white nightgown. Sometimes standing in front of a wall fixing her hair in an invisible mirror, and many times running down the stairs and across the lawn with her hair flying back behind her.

When I was about nine, I had hidden some stickers and other “top secret” things underneath my mattress. I came around the corner towards my bedroom door and saw a boy with dusty blond hair kneeling next to my bed and lifting up the dust ruffle. I yelled “HEY!” and he looked up startled and dropped the fabric. Without thinking much more about it I ran to tell my mother that my brother (who was also blond) was in my room going through my stuff. She looked perplexed for a moment and told me that my brother was spending the night at a friends house about 15 miles away. Needless to say I slept in my parents room for a few nights.

We have many other stories of dolls moving on their own volition, dolls with stationary or painted on eyes blinking at us. Until I was almost 13 years old, every night I would stuff all of my dolls and stuffed animals into the closet and close it tight.

Finally, a year before we moved out, my Father died. The night before the funeral, I couldn’t bear to sleep on the other side of the house away from my mother, but also didn’t think she would want me sleeping in her bed. So, I decided to sleep on the couch, which was better than nothing. Just as I was settling down to sleep, I felt a presence in the room; then came the sound of someone settling into the arm chair beside me and sighing softly. I knew from that moment on then my Daddy was watching over me.

Even after moving out of that house, I have experience many paranormal things…

It was Halloween night. My sister, my friends, and I were walking from her house to Bolivar Heights; we always go up there Halloween night. We were walking through the path heading towards where the old cannons were, when we saw three people standing there. They were dressed like the soldiers during the Civil War.

We thought they were part of a reenactment. We asked ourselves why they would be out at this time of night.

I yelled out, “Hey, why are you guys here at this time of night?”

Right before our eyes, they disappeared. My sister, friends and my self took off running after that we never went back to Bolivar Heights at nighttime.

My brother Matt, younger cousin Travis, and I have become somewhat of amateur ghost hunters. It all started after a normal Friday of drinking beer and playing with an Ouija we had just purchased. Travis had just received a JVC digital camcorder and we decided to start filming the rooms where we played with the board. Right away we started to catch tons of orbs on film. I mean we have showers of them!

The night before last, my brother was sleeping in my daughter’s room (it’s the most comfortable bed) and heard a thumping in his room. He said it was around 5 in the morning. Anyways, he takes the digital camcorder in there and leaves it recording. After about a minute of him leaving the room the curtains and blinds begin to pound furiously as if someone were standing behind them punching outward (the window will not open nor is there an air vent there).

The following night he slept in his own bed, because I had my daughter, and I didn’t have to work. He decided to sleep with the camera. Again around five in the morning he wakes to a pounding sound and turns the camera on. He laid in bed just filming the darkness, when the lights turn on by their self! Nothing surprises me anymore at this house.

“The house I live in doesn’t seem to have a history to it, but we do live across the street from a graveyard.”