The Sallie House Haunting: A True Story (23 page)

The next day was rather quiet. We spent most of it playing with Taylor and helping him explore his new toys. At 9:05 p.m., Taylor looked up and whirled around as if to watch something speed through the air above him. Ten minutes later, as Tony lay face up on the floor, he saw a flash of light in the corner of the room near the ceiling. He described it as a whirling ball of very bright light just like the one I had seen in the stairwell only days earlier.

After that, almost three days passed without activity. Instead of worrying about Sallie’s lack of activity or fearing that she would leave us forever, I came to realize that she would always be back. She was comfortable in our house and in our family. In fact, it seemed that we were her family.

About 10:00 in the evening of that third day, when Tony went up to the nursery to check on our son as he slept, he witnessed something alarming. Tony tucked the blanket around Taylor and almost immediately, it was ripped off the baby and tossed across the crib. Thinking he must have caught the blanket on his watch as his arm retreated from the crib, he replaced the blanket on the baby. Again the cover was thrown across the crib. Aggravated, but seeing no real threat, Tony quietly whispered, “Now quit that,” and for the third time, spread the blanket across Taylor’s little body and tucked it under him. This time it did stay put.

July 1994

Throughout the day of July 6th, Tony and I had a multitude of troubles with the portable phone. While we were using the phone, it would cut out or switch to a different frequency. After the first few times this happened, we discovered that pushing the little on/off button would allow us to hear the person on the other end again.

This problem did not occur with every phone call that day, while we were in any particular room, or talking to any specific person. The weather that day was clear and calm, and there were no incoming storms for the area—we felt confident that we could rule out weather as contributing to the problem. Ruling out logical reasons, however, didn’t often give us answers. In fact, it most often left us with more questions.

At this point, we’d had knowledge of our ghost for about a year and were discussing our experiences and their effect on our lives. We both agreed that the level of activity had lessened and almost as if Sallie was comfortable with life and her role in our home. On occasion, though, she enjoyed reminding us of her presence by interacting with us.

Physical activity that we could see was not the only way she got our attention. Even though they could not speak of it, Taylor and the animals seemed to be able to detect unseen activity, something Tony and I could not do.

We did not feel that our little family was in any danger, but Taylor’s reactions were like an early warning system, as he often looked off in a direction where there seemed to be nothing visible. He would give a big smile or wave as if to say hello. There were also times when we observed him squirm and giggle joyously, just like he was being playfully tickled.

The most noticeable thing we observed was the way he would often whip his head around in order to watch something whiz past the area just above or near his head. Watching where his eyes had been focused, it was easy to determine that he had not followed the path of a bug or beam of light. Many times, we would watch him track something across the room, or his dedicated focus on something that was interesting enough to keep his interest for several minutes. Most times however, we were unable to figure out what it was.

For several days, things were back to normal. Normal meant no activity, even though activity was quickly becoming the norm. Then, on July 9th, we were faced with a few new and interesting activities. That morning, about 8:45, Tony stretched out on the bed in the master bedroom. He had gotten home about an hour earlier, and he had finally unwound enough to attempt sleep.

While he lay down, I spent some time in the nursery with the baby in hope that it might lessen the aversion he had developed to that room. We played for quite a while and witnessed some interesting activity with one of the electronic toys. It was a sound-activated toy that hung from the inside of the crib with a feature that automatically began a thirty-second recording of the voices or sounds in the room. It would then play back what it had recorded. Its purpose was to reinforce the activity of a baby’s babble through the child hearing its own recorded voice.

We had been sitting on the floor for quite some time when I heard a strange, loud, almost screeching static noise coming from the crib. It startled me at first, then I realized it was one of the birthday gifts that had recently been installed on the wall of the crib. I found it odd that the toy would have been sensitive enough to pick up our quiet play from where we sat on the floor several feet across the room.

The unit seemed to have recorded and played back some other form of energy or noise; something that was close to it. Had it been Sallie? Had it been the woman? It certainly didn’t sound like a human voice and I wondered if it was something more menacing. The sound had been somewhat loud and ominous, and it was the first time I wondered if any of our experiences could indicate a demonic presence. Was it a warning of sorts?

Fifteen minutes later, the phone rang. I jumped over the baby gate at the top of the stairs and ran to the first floor to answer it. After a short conversation, I hung up the phone. On my way back up the stairs, I could see Taylor waiting on the other side of the baby gate. Then, just before I reached the top of the stairs, I heard a strange, faint, groaning sound come from the bedroom where Tony was supposedly sleeping.

Thinking it was probably the clock radio, which he often left on in order to drown out the daytime noises, I ignored it and stepped over the baby gate to pick up Taylor. A moment later, I distinctly heard the sound again. This time, I recognized it as a distorted version of Tony’s voice calling out my name.

“De-e-e-e-e-b!”

“What?” I called back, but there was no answer.

This happened several more times, and each time I became a little more aggravated that he wouldn’t reply. After the fourth or fifth time, I concluded that he was probably dreaming and I was simply overhearing him talk in his sleep. So again, I ignored it. A few seconds later, he called out yet again. I put the baby down and yelled, “What?”

There was still no answer. Finding his repeated calls a bit odd, I decided to go see what he wanted. Still very aggravated with his lack of replies, I abruptly opened the door.

“WHAT?”

When the door was opened enough that I could to see him, I found him on the far side of the bed with his arms stretched out from his sides, palms and body laid flat on the bed; his head was lifted and a look of terror was apparent in every line of his face. I looked at him quizzically, trying to understand why he looked the way he did. The fear did not leave his face and my annoyance quickly switched to concern and compassion. I asked him what was wrong. Instead of speaking, he gasped deeply for air as if he hadn’t taken a breath for several minutes. What he described next was baffling.

Apparently he had fallen asleep and had for some reason woken up, which was not unusual, since he had an awful time trying to sleep during daylight hours.

“It started out as the specks of dust against the light from the window and I thought it was dust from the vent in the wall near the end of the bed. That is, until I realized it had not been cool enough in the room for the heater to come on.

“I felt the water bed mattress start to gently roll and wave. Within a few seconds, it became violent, as if someone was standing on the bed and jumping up and down. Soon the motion was causing the pillows near my head to bounce several inches into the air and my body began to flop uncontrollably.

“The formation of dust particles near the foot of the bed began to get darker and denser. I think I was mesmerized by this formation, and before I realized, it had taken the shape of a woman’s upper torso, her arms folded in front of her and across her abdomen.

“This thing started to move closer to me and as it did, I could make out more details, like dark hair and a bitchy look, like the store owner’s wife on
Little House on the Prairie
. I was getting pretty scared and I don’t know why I didn’t try to get up and leave. As she got closer, I could see she was dressed all in black with a high collar adorned with a brooch. At that point, the water in the baffle of the mattress was frantically sloshing and it got so violent that I was barely able to move away and toward the other side if the bed. My heart pounded like crazy and I thought it would burst out of my chest any minute. I tried to call for you, but nothing would come out.

“And then, in an instant, she was in front of me. The bedroom door slammed shut, the drawer from the night stand flung itself open and closed repeatedly and the top of the highboy spun around. It was like being in a sci-fi movie and I could not scream.

“The woman’s hand suddenly lunged for my face and I heard a voice say, ‘I’m gonna…’ There was more that was said but I couldn’t make it out. I remember her hand was covered in a long black lace glove and just as it was inches from my face, I saw a black bird on her finger. I struggled to crawl out of bed and over to the door, and I don’t know if I was just too scared to work the knob properly or what, but I couldn’t get the door open. Then, suddenly, everything that was moving stopped and she was gone.

“I tried to scream several times but couldn’t; it was like nothing would come out. I don’t remember anything more; I don’t know how I got back on the bed except that maybe when everything stopped I got back up on the bed. I don’t know, maybe I blacked out or something. Then you opened the door.”

I had noticed nothing out of the ordinary except for how oddly Tony was splayed out on the bed and the look on his face. I didn’t see anything moving in the room.

He went on to describe how the voice seemed to be one among many. That it had come at him quickly and then seemed to pass him, and before he grasped what was happening, the voice was out of range and completely inaudible. He reported other, indistinct sounds along with the voice, but nothing he could describe in any detail. He reflected on this experience for days, and later described the sounds as “a lot of muffled voices, deep in a tunnel, and far away.” It had definitely been one of his most frightening experiences.

That afternoon, I was on the phone near the kitchen sink when the phone cut off. I hit the on button and within a second or so the party I was speaking to was once again audible. In fact, he had kept talking and apparently had been unaware that there had been any interruption at all.

On the 13th, just after 3:00 p.m., we were distracted yet again. I was upstairs with the baby and picking out clothes for the evening. Tony had just come home from work, and on his way up the stairs he noticed that one of the pictures hanging on the stairway wall was turned upside down but hanging perfectly straight. That morning, as Taylor and I were coming up those stairs, I remembered stopping to show him each of the pictures and explain who was in them. I knew for a fact that the photos had been right-side up at the time.

Many of the photos were of my family, who lived a good distance away, and that morning I had tried to familiarize Taylor with them so he wouldn’t think them total strangers. As we got almost to the top of the stairs, I noticed that Taylor was craning his little head to look at something down the stairs and behind us. I figured he had taken a particular interest in one of the pictures and didn’t give it much more thought. Thinking back, I wondered if he had been able to see interesting activity around the pictures.

By 3:30, Taylor and I were taking a quick bath while Tony stood at the sink, shaving. The bathroom door had only been slightly ajar, and because of a lull in the conversation, it was very quiet in the room. It was then that I heard a distinct moaning sound come from what seemed to be the hallway. Wondering if Tony heard it, too, I asked, “What was that? Did you hear it?”

His reaction was sort of funny. He had been standing there, quietly shaving, and because he did not react to the sound, I thought he had not heard it, but he quickly turned around to me and said, “Yeah! You tell me what it was and we’ll both know.” He paused and then continued, “I didn’t think you heard it.”

He told me that when he heard it, his first thought was that his paranoid mind was playing tricks on him. I guess my theories about his lack of sleep and his mind playing tricks on him had started to make sense to him, so he simply ignored it and wasn’t going to mention it. I could see the intense relief in his face when he realized I had heard it, too. I asked him what he thought it sounded like, not wanting to give away the sound I had heard.

“A moaning sound,” he said.

“Where did it come from?” I asked.

“The hallway,” he replied.

We both just sort of looked at each other with eyebrows high and eyes wide. Without saying another word, we knew that we had both heard the same thing.

Two days later, at about 5:00 p.m., the baby and I were in the nursery playing. I had been talking into the sound-activated toy to show Taylor how it worked and perhaps pique his interest in it. On playbacks, we heard not only my voice and his voice, but also some clanking of toys we had been playing with. We also heard a loud humming sound that I know we had not generated during the thirty-second recording. My mind quickly tuned in to the world around us. The neighborhood outside was quiet—no one was mowing or drilling or sawing and there was no sound anywhere in the rest of the house.