Gerri’s Blog

Do you believe in ghosts? Or better yet…have you ever seen a ghost? Remember the ghost story in The Target? Not the one with the miner, but the one in the casino where an image of a woman showed up on the security tape. She came down the stairs and went to one of the machines to “gamble”. True story. When we lived in Colorado, Diane worked in Cripple Creek, doing security for a couple of the casinos. Cripple Creek is an old mining town and the original buildings were converted to casinos. One night, well after midnight, after the casino was closed, she went to change the tapes. And as she watched the security cameras, the image floated down the stairs…a woman dressed for the times in the 1800s. She was spooked, but she wasn’t startled. She’d heard the stories before of others seeing “ghosts” in other casinos.

But we have a “ghost” here at the house. Really. We call him Jim. Jim was the original owner of the house, he built it along with the barn that sits at the edge of the woods. Jim died here at the house after a battle with lung cancer. We bought it from his widow. The “events” started subtly enough. The first time, two days before we closed on the house, she had already moved out, the house was clean, and she said we could start moving things into the barn if we wanted. This was in March, the days still cool, damp, darkness still comes early that time of year. Our first trip was uneventful and we unloaded boxes and such in the barn and closed it up. It is the kind of barn with the huge double doors that swing out. To close them, you put a long bar on the inside of the barn, across the double doors. We then closed and locked the side door and headed out. The next day, closing, I made a trip out there myself, early in the morning. The first thing amiss…the big double doors were wide open, the bar used to close them from the inside, lay harmlessly on the floor. The side door, still locked. Okay, I’m sure there’s a perfectly sane explanation for it. But what about the bag of trash strewn around the barn? It wasn’t there yesterday. There are no neighbors. And the trash? Old Christmas ornaments and cards, red bows and wrapping paper, and envelopes addressed to…Jim. Hmmm? The bag wasn’t there the day before and the widow had been gone for a week, back to Dallas. Still, there had to be a logical explanation, I thought, as I picked up the trash and stored it in the barn. And two nights later, it’s late, we’re inside painting, we haven’t moved yet, Diane’s up on the ladder and we need something…from the barn. “I’ll go,” I said as I grabbed a flashlight and headed down to the edge of the woods…where the very dark barn waited. Being a fiction writer, I do tend to let my imagination run and this night was no different. By the time I reached out my hand to the handle on the side door, I was seeing shadows in every corner, movement everywhere I looked. I jerked the door opened, reaching blindly for the light switch, relief as the darkness was chased away. My relief was short-lived. There, in the middle of the floor, lay the clock we had hung earlier. One of those large, round clocks, nothing fancy. But it lay on the floor, the two batteries placed carefully beside it. Oh, yeah…I ran like hell!

But Jim is just a prankster, I think. A week or two later, all the decorative lights that lined a flower bed were pulled up…all eight of them. Sure, a critter could have gotten caught in the wire that was buried just under the surface…right?

And it was in the spring of 2005 where he pulled his biggest trick. We were out in the yard, me in a flowerbed, Diane in the garden. Jordan was busy chasing lizards and anything else he could find, me trying to save everything he caught! Then an awful squealing came from the azalea bed…he’d caught a tiny vole. I rescued it, scooped Jordan up and threw his butt in the house. About thirty minutes later, he came walking by. What the hell? “Diane? Did you let Jordan out?” No, she’s been in the garden the whole time. Okay, so maybe he broke through a screen or something. It was a pleasant day, the windows were opened. But after inspection, only two windows were opened and their screens were securely in place. Okay, so Jim let him out. That was the only explanation.

Now, Jim’s only trick is to turn our closet light on. At first, I thought I just forgot to turn it off. We’d get home from work and the light would be on in the closet. Okay, sure, we could forget it once or twice. Not three times a week! So, we would make it a point to look before leaving the house. Light switch was down, light off. Come home…light switch is up, light on. “Dammit, Jim!” Those pranks have dwindled too, only occasionally will the light be on now.

Maybe he’s grown to like us. That’s what we think anyway!

Does anyone else have a story they want to share?