The years of the Civil War wreaked a terrible toll on the citizens of West Virginia and on the slaves who were held captive in points further south. For many years, there have been stories and rumors of terrible atrocities that were carried out on escaped slaves who were once again recaptured.

There is a house in Moorefield where these stories and rumors proved very real… resulting in a haunting that still echoes there today.

Despite the fact that the state of West Virginia has “seceded” from the Confederacy and had remained a part of the Union, there were still many Confederate sympathizers and outright supporters who lived in the state. One of these bastions of Confederate loyalty was the town of Moorefield in Hardy County. Many of the residents had remained Confederates after the start of the war because of the slave labor used to work the farms here.

The town also served as the headquarters to “McNeill’s Rangers”, a guerrilla band of Confederate troops who numbered no more than 100 men but who fought numerous battles in the war and captured tons of Federal supplies and ammunition.

The small army was led by partisan John Hanson McNeill, a former Missouri Confederate who had been imprisoned in St. Louis is 1861. After being paroled, he returned to West Virginia and raised volunteers for a fighting force. The band of men operated successfully against Crook and Sheridan and fought in guerrilla operations with Mosby in the Shenandoah Valley. They would also fight at Gettysburg and at the Battle of New Market.

McNeill’s Rangers became notorious for their raids on supply trains, camps and railroads but his tactics were not always appreciated by his superiors. He was criticized for his field performance and in 1864 he was court-martialed for accepting Confederate deserters into his ranks. He was acquitted of the charges but the taint of them followed him for some time. He was later captured and died from wounds in November of 1864.

McNeill and his men were also some of the most brutal of Confederate guerrillas. They met opposition in Moorefield by a prominent farmer named John Frist. He was a man who was loyal to the Union and McNeill hated him. One night, a hot-headed group of Rangers went to Frist’s house and murdered him, his wife and their three children.

After this, the house was turned into a prison where captured runaway slaves were held. The slaves were taken into the basement of the house, chained to the walls and left for dead. These unfortunate souls were not among the slaves who were released at the end of the war.
In 1865, a group of townspeople went to the Frist house and cleared out the bones and decaying bodies and gave them as decent a burial as possible, considering the tragic circumstances.

The house is still standing in Moorefield today and since the Civil War, many families have either owned or rented it. None of them have remained in the place for more than a year. It is said that each year, on the anniversary of the Frist family’s murder, blood appears on the walls and the floors of the room in which they were killed. It slowly wears off as time passes but it is impossible to paint over or wipe away.

There are also stories of strange sounds, screams and moans that come from the basement. Those who have been brave enough to venture down there in the darkness say that the sounds of rattling chains convince them not to stay for very long.

Here, before God, in the presence of these witnesses, I consecrate my life to the destruction of slavery…… John Brown, 1837. Along the streets of Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, a strange, gaunt, white-haired man walks along with a small black dog at his side. The two odd companions stroll past the storefronts and the buildings and the tourists who come here notice him and remark on his eerie resemblance to the man that made this town famous, John Brown. In fact, the resemblance is so uncanny that many will ask this man if they can take his photograph. Little do they know that when they get their film developed, no man will appear in their photograph. The man walks down the street to the door of the fire engine house, where he abruptly vanishes. Such are the encounters with the ghost of John Brown. For most of the citizens of America, the Civil War began in 1861 with the firing upon of Fort Sumpter, but for many, the war for freedom began many years before. For the abolitionists of the north and the slaves who were held in chains in the south, the Civil War was about the question of slavery. To those people, the war actually began in 1859….although for the instigator of this savage event, a man named John Brown, the war had begun much earlier than that. On October 16, 1859, the fanatical prophet of doom led a small army of five black men and thirteen white men into the village of Harpers Ferry. He brought along a wagon filled with 200 rifles, 200 pistols and 1000 pikes to arm the slaves that he was sure would rally to his cause of freedom… at any cost. He would lead his army south along the Appalachians and destroy slavery through the plantations of the south. Brown was many things in his life, from failed businessman to guerrilla leader in the Kansas Territory. When the question had come about whether or not Kansas was to have slavery, Brown had formed a personal strike force of killers to ensure that it didn’t. There was fierce fighting on both sides of the issue and towns like Lawrence suffered by being burned to the ground by pro-slavery forces and men like those in a cabin at Pottawatomie Creek were hacked to death with swords by Brown and his army of anti-slavery men. Brown became a symbol of the abolitionist movement and men who would speak out against slavery, but would not strike with the sword, railed his cause in abolitionist newspapers of the day. Brown moved east, bringing the fight to the slavery strongholds of the southern states.

At Harpers Ferry, Brown quickly seized the federal arsenal, the armory, and the engine house and then gathered up hostages from the village. After that, things started to spiral out of control. The first man killed was the town’s baggage master, a free black man. The army of slaves did not appear, but the townspeople did after Brown and his men opened fire on an incoming train. The first of Brown’s men to fall was a former slave who hoped that Brown could liberate his wife and children, still being held in the south. Someone in the crowd cut off this man’s ears as souvenirs. Before the battle was over, Brown would lose nine more men, two of them his own sons. Federal troops soon arrived from Washington and in command was Colonel Robert E. Lee, who had come so quickly with 100 men that he had not even had time to put on his uniform. A dozen of Lee’s men stormed the arsenal and fought their way inside. Brown was slashed with an officer’s sword and captured to be held by the state of Virginia for treason. He was hanged on December 2. No one had any idea what an effect Brown’s attack on Harpers Ferry would have on the northern public. Those who opposed slavery spoke out in anger and marveled at the courage shown by Brown. Herman Melville would call him “the meteor of the war”. In the south, people were horrified by the raid and by the sympathy shown to Brown for his reckless actions. It would be one of the catalysts to the coming secession by the southern states. As for the village of Harpers Ferry, the events of that day have left a lasting impression, from the ghost of John Brown to the memories and the history of those who fell and those who won the day. I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood… John Brown’s final public statement But John Brown’s ghost is not the only spirit to linger in Harpers Ferry… there are other ghosts here too, like that of one of Brown’s murdered men, who was mutilated by townsfolk and left to die with the hogs. There is also a haunted church, which was hit by a mortar round during the Civil War. This building is haunted by a priest who has been seen disappearing into the walls and by the sound of a baby crying, which can be heard on the front steps.

When I was younger I lived in my grandfather’s old house in West Virginia. I never knew of any strange happenings there and passed everything off as my overactive imagination. For example, when I first moved into the house, while was sleeping, I heard someone saying my name over and over as if they were trying to wake me up. They succeeded! I woke up and ran into my mother’s room, but she passed it off as someone playing a prank on me. This was no prank.

Later that year, I was up late one night watching TV, while everyone else was in bed. I was turning out the lights to go to sleep when all of a sudden, I heard a baby crying. It was so loud and it was definitely a baby. At the time, my mom tried to pass it off as a panther, but earlier this year (2004), we were talking about it and she told me that she knew it wasn’t a panther. But she was afraid to think of what it actually was. She started to tell me about how when she was young, when her dad was still alive, this light would follow him around the yard at night as he was doing yard work and everyone could see it but him. A lot of strange happenings went on up in that small holler. To this day, I don’t know what happened or what caused these events but if anyone has similar stories please e-mail me at luv2luvc20@yahoo.com. Thanks for listening!

The women on my mother’s side have been given a special talent. They are able to sense the unseen, and predict events to come, or see things as they are happening. It doesn’t skip generations, all the females have this ability, some are more attuned then others. As a child I was very attuned to this ability. It led to ghostly encounters, strange sounds, and the sense of being watched, also of freaking out neighbors and family by stating things that were going to happen and where. The ability went dormant in high school, I convinced myself that there was no such thing as ghosts and that it was just an overactive imagination.

Ironically on Halloween of 1997 the ability came back to me in full force. I knew that someone I knew was dead, I called home frantic that it was a family member. I spoke to my mom, she knew of no one in the family. A few minutes later she called back to tell me an ex-boyfriend had just been killed. Freaky huh? Not as freaky as what happened one March morning in Barboursville.

My finance and I had just moved into a house in Barboursville. It was full of cold spots! The coldest was the bedroom, no matter how high the thermostat was it was always cold. After a few days I began to have bad feelings about the house and was almost always sick and tired. Then I started to hear low murmurers, and they weren’t neighbors out in the yard. I never could make out what they were saying.

The feelings continued, I just ignored them but one March morning they would no longer be ignored. I was awaken by a black dog-like creature jumping onto the foot of the bed, it came toward me. I was calm at that time (I don’t know why) and I managed to ask “it” what it wanted. To my surprise it told me to leave it alone. It was haunting me and had enough ghostly nerve to tell me to leave IT alone! It then disappeared and I was wide awake.

I told my finance that we were moving, something we had already planned on. I don’t know if he sensed something odd about the house, he told me I just dreamed it. He is very skeptical. I would be too hearing a story like this, except I have experienced it most of my life.

Believe it or not, its up to you. However, I believe that part of the “old ways” still reside in mountain families all around WV and KY. There are numerous stories of old “witchy” women, or seers throughout the country, perhaps there was something brought over from the old countries with our families that will continue to run through the generations.

When I lived in Maryland my best friend, David, invited me to his family house in West Virginia. If they would have told me what they told me on the car trip there instead of at home, I would never have gone with them.

The house was is located in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains just about 30 miles from the Virginia border. It has been in my friend’s family for the last 150 or so years. As the story goes, way back in the days of the civil war my friends aunt met and fell in love with a young man. The war began and he left to fight. Two years past and she (my friend’s aunt) became depressed. She started seeing another man, and the man moved in with her.

But right about that time, the soldier was granted leave and came home only to find that his girlfriend had been cheating on him. At that moment, he simply snapped and shot the two lovers with his rifle in the downstairs bedroom.

To this day (and I have seen it) there remains a bloodstain on the wallboard in the room. If you try to paint over it (I used whiteout) the stain is back the next day.

Another instance happened on the anniversary of the killing when my friend’s mother and grandmother were driving back home from being in town. There is a long road leading up to the house and at one point on it you can see a clear view of the kitchen. They saw caskets laid out on the table and the local constable outside next to a horse drawn hearse. Thinking that a older family member had died, they rushed to the house to find everyone in the living room watching TV.

When my friend’s mother was a little girl she was playing around the family plot and saw a man and a woman in old fashion clothes come out of the woods. Being that the house is miles away from any other house she ran in to get her mother. When they returned outside they found nothing. Later that day while cleaning the downstairs room for a new baby they found a photo of the aunt with a man standing by the woods at the family plot. My friends mother then recognized them from earlier in the day, and insisted this until her mother told her that they had been killed in the civil war by her old boy friend. It was later that she realized she was standing near the grave of the aunt when she saw the couple.

It is also said that if sleep in the murder room on the anniversary the aunt will wake you up and scream in your face.

I know this may be hard to believe, and I used to be a non-believer, so to speak, but this honest to goodness, swear upon a bible happened to my husband and me.

When I was 17, we moved from Cross Lanes to Elkview due to the death of my father. We did not have much of anything due to legalities, but my mom, brother and I found this awful, run-down older “house-trailer” in Frame. It was infested with mice, old and I hated it. One day I found what looked like a deep, rust brownish-reddish stain in the bathroom around a floor vent that looked like it had soaked into the linoleum. There was also, what looked like a hand print that had stained the area too on the back of the door near the vent and floor. Upon talking to the neighbors, I was told that a woman had been raped and murdered in the place. Ok, like that was not freaky enough. Mom decided it was not true and advised me to do the same. Well, it was not quite so easy.

One night I was home by myself on my phone in my small room with my back to the hallway looking into my mirror just chatting away. I noticed a small white glowing “ball” that was somewhat transparent and about the size of a quarter in the corner of my mirror which faced the hallway. I turned around, looked into the hall and watched it move from the top of the corner of the hall down to my mom’s room at the end of the hallway. I was totally freaking out, but I followed it. I was at my mom’s bedroom door and it seemed to “float” to the ceiling to the corner of her bedroom. Then suddenly, like one pulls a flashlight away from the ceiling and it gets to be a big round light on the wall, which is what this did. It got big and faint then just seemed to suck into the corner of the ceiling. It disappeared. I was screaming and yelling, mom came home, and my friend on the phone thought I was losing it! I was chalked up to being stressed and tired by everyone, of course, no one believed me. Also, keep in mind the timer, the really old ones that buzz, on our stove never worked, we had a few people that are electricians look at it to fix it, but never could, it was a really old stove.

Now fast forward 3 months down the road. We were moving out to a better place and although I never stayed there alone again or said anything to anyone, I always had a “feeling”. I can’t even describe it, maybe I was crazy. Until my now-husband was moving in. That is how we met, he came to look at the place to rent before we moved out and we eventually got together.

Well, he started having the strangest things happen to him. Now realize my husband is Mr. Cynical, outdoorsy, manly-man kind of guy, so he thought he never believed anything like that. He now thought he was going crazy too. I never once mentioned anything to him about my “encounter”.

It so happens that one day he called me freaking out. He slept in a waterbed in what used to be my mom’s room. He wanted to know if I had been to his house while he was sleeping. I said no I hadn’t, he also called everyone he knew and no one had been there. It just so happens that his digital alarm clock that sits on the head of his bed, was sitting at the foot of his bed on the bed rail flashing the time, it was unplugged. I was beginning to think I was not crazy. I then told him of my experience and the supposed rumor of the murder.

Then one night I had stayed the night with him and it happened again. The alarm clock had been moved and was doing the same thing. I know no one had been in the house, then things would happen like the lamps fading in and out, off and on, and most importantly, remember the stove timer/buzzer that did not work. Well, we were awakened one a.m. to that thing buzzing like crazy, we ran into the kitchen and come to find out, the pilot light had gone out in all four burners and was leaking gas into the house, it was almost as if it was warning us.

He ended up leaving and also finding a better place to live, at least we know that we are both not crazy, it never seemed to hurt us or be mean, whatever it was, it was just, I don’t know, THERE. I KNOW this sounds crazy, but after that experience, both my husband and I are not cynical anymore!

I am a pretty down to earth person and not afraid of anything really. I do not take drugs, or drink liquor, so I was in a sound state of mind.

One night in my home, I was having a hard time sleeping. My bedroom is right outside of my living room. Well, I didn’t feel right sleeping in there that night, so I had fallen asleep on my couch when my mother had woke me up at around 11:30 or so. I went to my bedroom and went to sleep. In the middle of a dead sleep, I opened my eyes and felt as if someone was watching me. I sat up only to see a tall man with an angry look on his face staring at me. He was not glowing, or see-through, or anything like that. He looked like a normal person would with just this creepy sense to him. Well in terror, I jump from my bed, ran to my brother’s room, and looked at the clock it said 4:27. I slept in his extra bed that night.

The next evening I was going to try to go back to my bedroom to sleep. I was sitting on the phone with my girlfriend, and all of the lights were off, except for my room; we both heard a loud whistling. I remind you that she was on the other end of the phone, and heard it plain as day, I then ran back to sleep in my brother’s room. I did not sleep in there for many months. Since then, nothing happened in my house.

I walked the trail in Walker, WV (an old railroad track) to see the scenery and exercise each day. One day I was in the middle of my jog I felt a cold chill shoot down my spine. I shook it off and ran faster. Then I heard something so loud, so unexpected, and something so horrible words cannot explain.

I stopped dead in my tracks, grabbed my ears, and hit my knees. I was alone but felt a presence. I looked up to see a figure coming at me. As it drew closer, I could finally understand what she was saying and tell what it was. It was a floating woman screaming, “Help” and “Lord help me”. Then it disappeared with total silence. I rose to my feet and ran away. I have not been back since.

July 1992. Near midnight. Rural Pocahontas County. Seebert Road.

A friend and I, along with a lifeguard from the swimming pool at Watoga State Park, were returning to the campground at the park after driving to Marlinton for some late-night snacks. Earlier in the day, I’d lost my car keys in the Greenbrier River, so the lifeguard set us up with a campsite at the park and offered to drive us to town for supplies until I could get a key for my car made the next day.

It was near midnight when we turned off of U.S. 219 onto lonely Seebert Road to head to the park entrance. That part of West Virginia is mighty rural, and Seebert is no exception. It was foggy that night, as well, when I saw one of the most bizarre things I’ve ever witnessed.

A field, with a fence row, is on the right side of the road as you head toward Watoga and tiny Seebert, which sits along the Greenbrier River. As we were driving, less than a mile off Rt. 219 along that road, a very tall, almost glowing, figure of a man suddenly rose from the ground next to a fence post. The man didn’t stand up, as one would from a lying position, but rather sprang straight up, without bending his knees in a perfect arch — similar to the way Dracula rises out of his casket in the 1990s film “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” but much faster.

Once he was in a standing position, this “man” stared intently at our car as we drove past, turning only his head to follow the car. He made no other movements and didn’t attempt to follow.

The figure was at least 6-1/2 feet tall, bald and had an eerie halo-like glow around his entire body. It almost reflected in the fog. His body was self-illuminated and not an image caused by the car’s headlights. I know this because the figure was looking right at me as we drove by, well out of headlight range.

One very distinctive feature I remember was that he was bald and the stare from his eyes was incredibly intense.

Just as we passed the figure, all three in the car looked at each other and said, “Did you see what I just saw?”

We all did. We today, still confirm that was no human figure. It would have been impossible for anyone to rise from a supine position in that fashion.

It pretty much creeped us all out… chills on the back of the neck kinda thing.

I tell this account of a series of experiences my wife and me had a not-so-nice spirit. We had never planned to tell this experience outside of our circle of close friends, but I guess it is worth sharing.

I rented an upstairs apartment of a farmhouse on a mountain-top that was located at the intersection of RT 33 and “I believe” County RT 12 in Pendleton County, WV. (Midway between Brandywine and Franklin WV). Several strange occurrences happened.

This didn’t register when I first moved in, but the landlady said the apartment became available when a school teacher suddenly left one night and went back home to (Kansas, Illinois, or Iowa). She left furniture, clothes and all, and wanted none of it returned to her). The landlady passed it off as an irresponsible person who didn’t value a job or money). Sounded good to me at the time. I was just looking for a place to live.

I lived in the house for a couple weeks by myself before my wife and daughter joined me. Only one thing happened in that two weeks. I was laying on the floor late one night listening to music when I heard a crashing sound in the bedroom. I got up to investigate, saw nothing, then retired to the bed for the night because it was a little after 1 AM. I thought nothing of it.

After my wife and daughter arrived, a couple weeks went by with nothing out of the ordinary happening. Then for 3 or 4 nights straight at about 1:30 AM we heard the phone ring several times in the landlord and landlady’s downstairs apartment. We heard someone walk across the floor, apparently answer the phone, then start talking in a muffled tone. Late-night news usually means bad news, so we hoped all was well with them. After about the fourth straight night of hearing the phone, we approached the landlady and asked if everything was ok. We told her we heard the phone ringing and hoped it wasn’t bad news. She looked at us like we were crazy and then said that they had not received any phone calls. My wife and I eventually blew it off as the landlady being unwilling to share their personal business with strangers.

Maybe a week later while I was at work, my wife was writing a letter to her Grandma, and words suddenly appeared on her paper in thick black ink that said: “DON’T HURT THEM”. The words then disappeared. Just before the words appeared, the room became very hot, then cooled back off after the words went away. My wife threw the letter away and wrote a new one. She didn’t tell me of that experience right away, as she thought her imagination was getting away from her. (Background: Earlier that evening my wife and I had been walking on the farm, and noticed how run-down things were getting. The owners were in their mid-late 80’s and were unable to keep the farm up. We said during dinner that they should consider selling the farm to younger people who can take better care of it).

A couple nights later I worked a night shift. Between 1 and 2 AM my wife called and asked me to come home. There was a major problem. After questioning her, she said she was asleep in the bed when the bedroom window opened, and a mist appeared in the corner by the window. The mist moved over to the area of the room where my daughter was sleeping in a crib, then made its way to the side of the bed. Then it moved across the room and went out the window. Then the window slammed shut. The whole time the mist was in the room, my wife said she could hardly breathe, as the room was hot and smelled rotten and sulfur-like. When I arrived home she looked awful. You could tell she had been through a terrible trauma. She explained all that happened. I tried the window to see if it could go up and down easily to try and explain away what happened, but could barely budge the window a couple inches. It was at that time that she shared the letter writing incident with me.

After that, we both constantly felt as though there was someone hanging over our shoulder. Also, since moving in the house we had to keep lights on in all the rooms even during the day, as the rooms were very dark. Several other things happened over the next 6 weeks until we couldn’t take it anymore and moved.

– More times than one could count, both she or I would be walking in the apartment, and feel someone was behind us. We would turn around, but nobody was there. (We didn’t share this with one another until after we moved).

– One night, I fell asleep on the couch and felt someone nudge me forcefully several times. I woke up and asked my wife what she wanted. I noticed that she was sitting across the room reading a book. I asked if she nudged me, and she said no. It was not a muscle twitch.

– Another time, we were in bed falling asleep, when we heard things crashing in the kitchen. I ran into the kitchen to see the trash can tipped over, and garbage strung all over the floor. It was apparently forceful shoved over, as trash was thrown from one end of the room to the other. There was no way the can could have fallen over on its own.

– Other things like cans, plates, glasses, and bowls were tipped over on different occasions. When these things happened, a hot, rotten, sulfur-like odor would fill the room.

– The worst one was when I was at work one night. My wife was in the living room and my daughter was sleeping in the bedroom. The bedroom door suddenly slammed shut (against gravity) and locked. My wife was frantic. She pulled and pulled but the door would not budge. She could smell the rotten sulfur odor coming from under the bedroom door. She yelled at the spirit and demanded that it let her open the door. She heard the window slam shut, and the door opened. My daughter was safe in bed. That was the last major problem we had but felt it was time to move.

We moved three weeks later, and it was the last time we set foot in the house. We put the experience behind us and started living a normal life in another house.

About 6-months later I met up with a friend that I hadn’t seen in over a year. (We were both in the military at the time). He informed me he had just finished moving. I asked if he was just moving into the area. He said, he had been in the area for a month but was just moving from one house to another. I asked where he was moving from and to. He said he was moving from a farmhouse on a mountain to a house in town. I inquired where the house was. It turned out it was the same farm-house apartment that my wife and I have lived in not 6 months earlier. He suddenly became very serious and asked if we had “problems” while living in the house. I asked “what kind of problems ?”. He said “don’t think I’m crazy, but…”

It turns out him and his wife had the same type of problems as we did. I was relieved to know that we weren’t crazy, but sad for him and his wife that they had to experience the same problems as we did. We talked for over an hour on things that had happened, and then put it behind us.

As for the school teacher. When my friend moved out of the house, he told the owners what problems he had. The landlady blew it off as foolishness and said the school teacher gave a similar excuse. Apparently, the school teacher took off in the middle of the night carrying her keys, purse, and the clothes she had draped over a chair next to the bed. She drove straight through to her home state only stopping to eat or use the toilet. She informed no-one of her sudden decision to leave, until 3-weeks later when the landlady called her parents to see if she may be there. She refused to talk about why she left but only said that the landlady could keep her clothes and furniture, as she wanted to be sent to her. I would really like to find and talk to her.

It has been 19 years since that happened, and I still remember it as though it were yesterday. My wife and I have not researched the experience further, nor do we care to. We never have been or never will be into paranormal, or any kind of cultist activities. We did not go looking for an experience with a ghost, but one apparently came looking for us.

The 29th Street area in Wheeling was at one time nicknamed Germantown due to its high number of people with a Germanic descent. My family is from this area. All the way from the Ohio River out the pike, one can walk down 29th Street and hear stories of hauntings in almost every other house.

One such house is my Aunt’s house. This was the original family house that my Grandfather purchased. It is not on 29th street but runs parallel to it just one block south. The first thing one notices about the house is that it is the only one that sits back off the street, therefore shrouded in shadow by the tall houses on either side of it. Along uneven brick walkway takes you to the house. As you walk along it, the feeling of being unwelcome is almost overpowering. Once you are inside the house be aware that you are being watched and scrutinized with every step you take.

There were several children in my Aunt’s family. Some lived out long lives, others died “prematurely.” She used to say that the family always came back to the house.

My Aunt used to tell me of times past and of old customs. She told me that it was proper to have the deceased laid out in the living room instead of a funeral home. She told me that at one time it was legal to bury the deceased in your own yard. She also told me that the dead always return.

My Uncle JR was the firstborn of my Aunt’s siblings. As a child, his favorite toy was a red lantern. He fell down the narrow steps. He died a few days later. JR would come back to visit every night on the anniversary of his death. One would hear a strange tapping on the window at the bottom of the stairs then a red lantern would glow softly. I did not believe it, I was openly skeptical. My Aunt begged me to visit on a certain night. I did. My Aunt, my father and I sat in the kitchen. They had their coffee and I had some soda. After a while, we heard the faint tapping. My Aunt took me into the room, and there it was before my own eyes, a red lantern, glowing crimson and swinging ever so gently, but evenly back and forth. The three of us stood there watching it for a few moments, then my Aunt said, “Welcome home Jr. Thanks for visiting. Come again next year. Enjoy your rest.” Then it faded.

Not long after we were visiting once again. My parents and my aunt sat in the kitchen and I was sitting in the living room watching the television. After a while, I got up and went to chat with everyone else. I mentioned that I like my aunt’s new rocking chair. She told me she did not have a rocking chair. I described it. She and my father looked at each other. She then looked at the calendar and just nodded. I went back into the living room, but the rocker was gone. On the way home, my dad explained that that was my grandmother’s chair and that day was the anniversary of her death. Strangely, these two things did not bother me. They freaked me out but did not frighten me.

The next sighting did. I was visiting and I needed to use the restroom, which is upstairs. I started up the very same stairs where JR fell. I stopped, looked up, and there before I stood, the outline of a man. Within it, or maybe I should say through it, everything was distorted. (It reminds me of the movie Predator when it was invisible) This was not Jr. I never met the man, but I could tell. I could feel the anger. I was unwelcome. The upstairs always gave me the creeps, but after this encounter, I never stepped foot in the stairwell again. I told my brother about the encounter and he said that he had the exact same thing happen to him and that is why he never went back to the house.

There are more stories of objects that appear in the house and things that have moved. However, they are similar in tale, books, paintings, mirrors…

There was another visit that I find important. My oldest brother bought a house just two doors away from my Aunt. His grandsons live with him. Once my brother heard his grandson playing and talking to some guy in his bedroom. My brother asked whom he was talking to. The young boy pointed to a picture hanging on the wall and it was my father. My stepsister did not believe it at first, and then she found her bra in the freezer. That sounds like something my Dad would have done when he was alive. When did this happen? Three years to the day after my Dad passed away.

This is one more story that tops them all, but it is still very personal and maybe one day I will reveal it. The thought of it still raises the hairs on my arms and neck and makes me reach for a crucifix.

Of all the original siblings in the house, only four are still living. My Aunt is now in a rest home. The house sits there, empty, waiting…

I am a Respiratory Therapist at Beckley Appalachian Hospital. This story occurred less than a week ago on the floor I had that night. It was around 10:30 at night and I was waiting to do a procedure on a patient in a room at the end of the hallway. I was standing in the hallway facing towards the center of the hospital talking with one of the nurses who was facing in the opposite direction.

Well, from the corner of my eye I saw a man standing in the doorway of the room I was waiting to enter. So I assumed it was my patient told me he was ready for his test. But as I turned, I heard footsteps and the man was gone. I looked at the nurse and asked her if anyone was standing in the doorway. She said no one was there but she had heard footsteps. We both checked surrounding rooms and found all patients were in bed and had been for a while. The really creepy part is that I could make out details about this person like he was wearing a green hospital gown and looked just like a man that had passed away in that room several months ago.

My only explanation… an ex-patient that came to say hello.