Volume 3: Ghost Stories from Texas (Joe Kwon's True Ghost Stories from Around the World) (23 page)

It Wasn't Her

Lake Jackson, Texas

It was quite a few years ago, maybe when I was eleven or twelve, when I had my encounter. It didn't seem so troubling then, but now I'm always wracking my brain for some sort of explanation.

I was sleeping over at a friend's house, like I usually did every weekend. There was the occasional bump in the night and unexplained noise, but I always dismissed it. I was young, and what didn't scare me then frightens me now.

It was around five or six in the morning, just at the peek of daylight, when I woke up to see my friend wasn't beside me anymore. Still somewhat asleep, I got up to see where she had gone. In my friend's house, they had sort of a 'junk' nook, where everyone just kept their things in. It was still dark in the house, but in that room nestled in the nook I found my friend. I crouched down next to her and asked what she was doing. Slowly, her head turned and she looked at me. Finally, she replied, "nothing". I shrugged it off and left her, I was cold and wanted to get back to bed.

I went back to her room to see that she was still in bed, sound asleep. Still half asleep, I thought nothing of it and crawled back into bed and fell asleep. There were no other kids in the house, and there was no way she could have sneaked by me to get back to her room. I always thought nothing of it when I was younger. But as I grew up, that memory has always stuck with me, and always made me wonder, just who exactly was I talking to?

Angels Everywhere

Denton, Texas

I have had a lot of very strange things happen that have saved my life at least 30 or more times in the 50 years I have lived.

The only explanation is the feeling I get just after each time it happens. I get this very emotional feeling and many times a picture in my mind of the relative who just snatched me out of the jaws of death. It is always a relative who is already dead.

The most memorable one:

I was 19, and stepping off a curb to cross a street late at night. I was all alone, or so I thought. Suddenly someone grabbed the back of my coat and dragged me backwards onto the curb - just having seconds to save me from a speeding car that was coming down the street at about 70 miles an hour. They were drunk and swerving badly.

As I stood on the curb, in shock, I turned around to see who had grabbed and pulled me back. No one was there! At first I felt a chill, but then I felt this strange warmth and saw an image of my grandfather deep inside of me. It was very strange but not scary. Since then, someone has yanked the steering wheel of my car, saved me from a carjacking, and dozens more incidents. These have assured me each time that I am supposed to stick around awhile longer.

In The Dark

San Antonio, Texas 

This story doesn't have a time because it still goes on. But it all began when I was 14 and my cousin moved in for her senior year while her mom moved to another town for a new job.

My cousin moved into the room across from mine, and every weekend my aunt would come down so they could spend time together until she went to college. When she graduated and moved out, that's when I decided to move into her room, because it was bigger.

Well my parents decided to buy me new stuff, so while we were moving things I stayed in the room my aunt used for the year. And weird things happened. First I'd get these sick disturbing images of my dog being ripped to shreds and me being forced to watch it, or my worst fears coming to life.

Then it just stopped and my vision would go. My voice would go, and then I was paralyzed. I couldn't move, I couldn't think, but fear took over my body. And then I could see again.

Black figures were floating above me, laughing and taunting me as if they’d won. I was raised in a religious home and I tried to remember verses, but they were all jumbled up and I couldn't say anything.

I tried screaming for my mom with nothing coming out. So I decided to just scream in my head things I learned at church or from my parents, then it would be over. And I wouldn't be able to go to sleep for the rest of the night.

It happens still to this day, and I'm grown now. I only get these experiences in my aunt's room and my new room. Nowhere else in the house do I feel this uneasy feeling or fear of what's lurking in the dark. Whatever it or they are, they aren't going away, no matter what my parents or I do. I sleep with a Bible every night, hoping it will help, but mostly I've become an insomniac.

The Non-smoker

Houston, Texas

I was only fifteen years old and I lived with my parents.

I should mention that, at only fifteen, I had a very bad smoking problem. Yes, I did consider myself to be addicted. I am very ashamed, I will admit. My parents did not know that I smoked. I usually did it when they were in bed and I was in my bedroom.

On our first night in this house, I was kind of nervous, to say the least. I mean, new house and all... you can't help but feel a little weird. So, I decided at about 1:00 in the morning to have a cigarette... I sneaked one from my mom's pack, and took it into my bedroom. I lit it up and started to relax, when all of the sudden my door started to open! Thinking it was my parents, I quickly put the cigarette out and ran to the door. But, when I opened it up the rest of the way, no one was outside.

I figured, "Great, now I have a broken door."

I shook it off and was kind of scared to go out and get another cigarette, so I didn't smoke that night.

The next night came around, and I did my usual sneak and smoke. It happened again. Now, this time I thought it was weird because I saw the doorknob turn. Thinking it was my parents, I again put it out quickly and ran to the door. And again, no one.

Shaken up this time, I wasn't about to go back out and sneak another one. So, once again, for the second night in a row, I went cigarette-less! Now, this same thing happened every night that I did the sneak and smoke for almost two months. And, for a whole two months I didn't get to have one cigarette and I finally dropped the habit.

I later got some information about that house. The lady that lived here before us was about fifty-four years of age when she died. And, here is the freaky part: She died of lung cancer from smoking.

Here is my one question. Could the dead lady have helped me drop my smoking habit by opening my door just a little to make me think that it was my parents, that way I would quit? I like to think so.

A Face in the Mirror

Houston, Texas

When I was young I would visit my grandmother's house a lot. Once when my brother and I were spending the night, something happened that I will never forget.

I was about twelve years old and my brother was ten. I woke up Sunday morning around 7:30 and was just laying in bed daydreaming. My brother was still asleep in another bed next to mine. I could see inside the bathroom from where I was laying, and I was kind of looking at the ceiling when something caught my eye. I looked at the bathroom mirror and saw nothing. I told myself that my mind was playing tricks on me.

My gaze drifted for a minute, and when I looked at the mirror again my heart missed a beat. There was a new reflection in the mirror now, but the strange thing was that there was no one to make the reflection. I saw some brown curly hair on the side of the mirror. I shut my eyes for a couple of minutes and told myself that when I open them it will be gone. I opened my eyes and there was someone looking at me in the mirror. If you ask me details I have none to give you because I jumped out of bed so fast and screamed so loud the neighbors came to see what was wrong.

I only know that the face was a young girl, with brown, short, curly hair in sort of an old fashioned cut. I never slept in that room again.