The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

Some believe in ghosts, and ghost sightings, some do not, but when we find a ‘haunted’ house our curiosity heightens. Although we are discouraged from going near them, those who deem themselves brave still try to enter them, usually causing some sort of disruption. My mother had always told me to never enter an abandoned house because someone, who can hurt you, could possibly be in there. She believe in that kind of stuff; ghost, haunted places, mysterious things happening, but I never paid any attention. “Never enter the house of a spirit” she’d always say. But I always believed if I could not see it with my own eyes, it was not real. However, one small trip into an old ‘haunted’ house certainly changed what I had always thought before, that ghost were in fact not real.



There is a small old town near my house, called Ellicott City. It is a small place, only about 40 houses. The distance from one side of the town to the other only took you about 25 minutes to walk, and mind you that’s walking slowly. On the outer part of the town, hidden in the woods, was a large home. The house was built sometime in the 1950's and has no one living in it now. Tall oak and maple trees would cover the house so you could only see it for a split second before it was engulfed once again. I always saw it whenever we went down the hill and into Ellicott City but I never really knew much about it. I went there one time with a friend of mine, Meg. She and I had heard that the house was "haunted" but we didn’t believe it, so we thought it would be fun to go there and see for ourselves if it really was haunted by ghosts. On a cloudy afternoon, possibly around five, we walked down the dusty, gravel driveway and entered the house. The house itself does not give you a fright. The exterior was painted a soft yellow color, although the color had dimmed to a murky cream. In those places where the sun did not hit much, the house still kept the sweet color. Someone had obviously taken care of the house because, despite its age, none of the windows were smashed, the doors were still intact and the furniture inside was covered in thick white sheets. However, the first thing I noticed when we walked in was the horrible smell. The house smelled like dirt, soil and rust. Together those smells made my eyes water.



After looking around in the kitchen and living rooms, Meg and I decided to go up stairs and explore the rest of the house. She walked into one room while I walked into the another, which was located directly across the dark hall. Despite the lack of light I could still see clearly around the room. The was hardly anything on the walls, it was like no one ever used it. The walls were a creamy white and had small cracks in various places. Light, sheer yellowing curtains hung on the window, a bed sat in one corner and a vanity sat near the other. I walked around the room when a loud crack scared me half to death. It was Meg, she was walking into a new room down the hall. The sound that scared me was the floor, it creaked in spots. After making sure my heart had come back to its rightful pace I continued to look around the room. Everything seemed fine until I walked over to the closet. There was a cold spot. I had heard that usually cold spots are ghost. I was getting kind of freaked but decided that there must have been a draft coming from the nearby window. Then I turned around and looked over to the other side of the room where the vanity stood, a sheet covering it. I took the sheet off with shaking hands, looked into the mirror and screamed the loudest scream I have ever made. In the mirror, over my shoulder, by the closet was a little boy. The boy looked quite ordinary; brown hair in a bowl cut, dirty blue jeans and a dark green sweatshirt. It was not his appearance that scared me, it was the stains on his clothes. Blood stains. He was drenched in it. It seemed to be pouring from his neck where it looked like someone had slashed his throat. I screamed like a banshee and ran from the room. Meg met me in the hallway, I told her what I saw and she slowly walked into the room. We saw the little boy standing next to the vanity looking through the mirror to us. The scary thing was he seemed to only be visible through the mirror and not the actual room. The little boy lifted his hand towards the glass of the mirror. It seemed like he was trying to beckon us to him. That was all it took. We ran as fast as frighten deer, down the stairs, out the front door and all the way to the street.



Finally, out of breath, with tears streaming down our faces, we walked to a local gas station that was about a quarter of a mile away from the house. An older man was at the cash register. He looked at us as we rushed in, showing no bewilderment. He had a look on his face that told us that people rushing into the store, out of breath, looking scared, was just an everyday thing. When the tender asked what was wrong, we told him the entire story. Wilbert, his name was written on his shirt, said he wasn't surprised. According to him, twenty some odd years ago a cranky, old man lived there until he died, but before that the neighborhood children would go up to the house and taunt him. Eventually the old man died of heart failure. Most of the town’s people, kids included, weren’t all that upset. On one particular night a group of kids went to see if they could break in to the old house, do some damage, things they considered ‘fun’. One of the older kids dared the others to go into the house, up the stairs and hang a scarf out on of the windows to show that they had gotten there. When no one volunteered they chose shy, 8 year-old, Anthony Mille. According to the myth, he went in but never came out. Some say he got so scared that he ran home and his family moved, but others say the old man’s spirit was still in there and it killed little Anthony. No one knew for sure what actually happened but according to the Wilbert, on those days when someone would enter the house, Anthony would appear to them, making them run away from supposed danger. “Like an guardian angel”, the old tender said. My friend Meg and I was totally spooked and after promising, several times in fact, that we’d never go in there again, we left to return home, this time, armed with a flashlight.



We don’t always listen to our parents about things we deem silly, like “haunted’ houses, because we think they’re just being overprotective. We never really take into account that some things they tell us are perfectly true. I believe now, and never again will I ever go to a place considered ‘haunted’. My mother, who would love to hear me say this, was absolutely correct in saying there really are such things as spirits and unexplainable events. Therefore, the question I ask you is this: What did you get from my story? Do you think I’m crazy, or could the truth really be staring you in the face? And the ultimate question: Do you believe in ghosts?