I See Dead People: Oldie but Goodie Ghosts

This was another one of those "nothing much happened" weeks around here in my haunted house. Oh, there's always the usual. Howard walked by the side of the house while hub was looking out the window. When hub started to head outside, I asked, "Where are you going?"

"I just saw someone in our side yard," he said. "But when I looked out the window again, there was no one there. I'm going out to see who it is and where he went."

"Don't bother," I said. "I saw him and it was Howard."

He just shook his head and went back into the living room to watch his TV show.

I caught glimpses now and then of my paranormal boarders this past week, everything from a white flash to a shadow to a gray, human shape. Howard was full-bodied and in color, solid enough to fool hub but not me. I even mentioned to Timmy, my SRT Equipment Tech, that I'd been seeing a lot of things like that. Timmy always asks me in his daily calls if "anything paranormal has been going on." Most of the time, I tell him, "Nothing beyond normal."

During this past week I was also cleaning up my office some — it's still a mess, but it's my mess — and I decided to put some of the files I have on the ghost end of my life into the filing cabinet. I leafed through a few, and took a stroll down memory lane. I've nowhere near written about all the paranormal incidents in my life. A lot of them are just too ordinary to even write down, since when you live in a haunted house, you either learn to handle having ghosts around or you pack up and move. I like my house, so my ghosts get handled, sometimes with a strict hand.

I found some notes on a trip I made with one of the first psychics I studied under to a private residence in a nearby town. We met a reporter from one of the little local weeklies there. It was close to Halloween, so the reporter wanted to go "ghost hunting with some real ghost hunters" and get a story for her paper. She pretty much looked on this as just that: a story. You could tell she was quite a skeptic. However, even that early in my training, I felt several ghosts in the house we arrived at.

The reporter followed us around and took notes as we identified the ghosts. I caught her stifling a yawn once. Perhaps one of the ghosts did, too, and decided to make a believer out of her. Suddenly the temperature in the house dropped drastically, and though all the doors and windows were closed, a huge whoosh of icy wind blew through the room where we were standing. Every one of us halted and shivered. The wind evidently hit the reporter as intensely as it did the rest of us, because she froze in place and her face got white.

"Did anyone else feel a gush of cold air race past them?" she whispered.

We all agreed that we had, and one of the home residents said, "There's no way that wind got in here. The house is securely closed up."

"I've heard about things like that being paranormal," the reporter said, staring around as though she were afraid something was going to jump out at her. "Was it a ghost?"

"Yes, it was," the psychic who was teaching me said.

Within the next few minutes, the reporter decided she had quite enough for a story and said goodbye. To her credit, she didn't ask anyone to walk her to the car, although it was after 9 o'clock and extremely dark outside.

I found a lot of notes about our trips to Goshen Cemetery, a graveyard many paranormal investigators won't go near. I don't visit there often, and when I do, everyone with me wears a protection packet. It's a dark place, but once in a while, we do have a fun happening there. One trip was shortly after we'd met Timmy, who has become an important part of my team. He was following behind me, and all of a sudden, something pinched my butt. Hard.

I whirled around and said, "Timmy! Don't you know any better than that?"

"What?" he asked, his tone of voice indicating he was truly puzzled at my irritation.

"Pinch a woman's ass. I'm old enough to be your mother. Would you do that to her?"

"I didn't touch you, Miss Trana," he said. He calls me Miss Trana all the time. "Really, I didn't. Honest."

We both looked at each other. There was a full moon, so we didn't need flashlights that night. I glanced around, and there wasn't anyone within pinching distance of me. In fact, the rest of the group was scattered to the far corners of the cemetery.

"I guess it was a ghost then," I said. "Sorry I accused you."

"Where's he at now?" Timmy asked softly. He loves paranormal investigating, but he freely admits he never wants to see a ghost anywhere except in a picture he took.

I shrugged. "Somewhere," I said.

"Well, don't you take off and leave me alone," he said.

"But I'm where the ghosts are," I told him with a laugh.

Still, he stuck close to me for the rest of the evening.

~~~~

I can't believe Dead Man Ohio is unfolding so quickly! I only started it a few days ago, and I already have three chapters written. In between, I'm working on the stories for another volume of diaries. I'll stay busy on this end as long as you keep enjoying the stories on yours. Writing is a lot of work, but I'm someone who is fortunate enough to have work to do that I totally love.

We've got nasty cold here in Texas, but I won't blame you Yankees for sending those Arctic fronts down to me. I know it's nature. Still, I'm going to be chanting right along with you Northerners: "Hurry up, Spring!"