SUBMITTED BY: ANGEL

DATE SUBMITTED: OCTOBER 20, 1997

I preface my story with the statement that I grew up in an "aware" home. I grew up hearing paranormal stories from my parents as personal experiences and also as historical regional phenomenon. My parents and my older sister experienced unusual happenings in our house. This probably led to my fear of the dark and I just know if I actually saw a ghost or something more "defined", I would have a heart attack and die. Whomever is the keeper of such things must know this because it's not yet happened.Just a couple of spookers:

My older brother (7 years older) was at home at this time having always been in trouble and in and out of jail. It was one of his behaving periods. I was in high school. Probably a junior. My brother was left at home babysitting my younger brother and sister (at that time ages 10 and 6. My older sister (by 2 yrs) and her boyfriend invited my folks to dinner (kiss up?). I went out with my boyfriend and was not happy to have to be home before 10 so as not to stress my brother out too much. So I get home, I have a definite attitude.

My brother greets with the announcement that he is hearing things up in the attic. The attic is a pitch roof over the flat roof that was on the house originally. Dad got tired of tarring the roof and such so he just put a pitch roof on this otherwise territorial house. The little pea gravel is still up there an it's bearly crawlable. I used to be in charge of putting stuff up there and I kept it organized. The entrace was a hole in the hallway where the sawmp cooler used to be and the doors were plywood you took out -- nothing fancy. You used a step ladder to get to it and you actually had to lift yourself up into it. So the noise...yeah, yeah, yeah. Trying to get me to talk to him. Mr. Macho gang member is talking to me about a noise in the attic. I went to bed and low and behold something sounding exactly like me moving a heavy box around upstairs! I didn't even move out of bed but hollared for my brother! He gets my Dad's rifle and he gets the ladder and flashlight to check out where the regular light doesn't reach. He is obviously frightened. Nothing. So we go outside thinking maybe someone is on the roof. Nothing. We looked everywhere. Nothing but the sound. (BTW no bullets in the rifle). We called my folks home from their outing. By the time they got home, I was hysterical and my brother was freaking.

About a year later, it's winter and early to darkness. By virtue of 6:00 pm Mass, my family is gone when I get home from dance drill team practice. I am practicing my latest routine using the school record player for which I am responsible. Wasn't even thinking about anything except getting good at this routine and the club meeting I had at 7:00. Suddenly the sound. I caught my breath and turned up the player a bit. It got louder and I turned up the volume. It got louder a couple of times and when there was no volume left, I shut the player off, threw my jeans over my romper as I was walking out the door without even so much as locking it. I got in my car and drove to my exboyfriend's house, crying and praying all the way. He was kind enough to let me babble and offered to take me back but I wouldn't go back. He did end up following me up to my meeting which was unnecessary. I believe my folks blessed the house (again) after that!

Prior to this happening, I gave up being in charge of the attic. I had an incident where I started to up for something and I heard an audible sigh up there when no one else was home. I have never been up since! I won't even go up there now. You know, to this day, I am afraid of the dark in that house. Oddly enough, I stopped being afraid of the dark in my house (first mtg) even though I am certain my baby brother (passed 10 years ago) is there watching over me and my kids. I live 1400 miles from my folks... Thanks for the place to put this stuff.