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Music From The Basement

 

When I was fifteen I didn't like hearing ghost stories. I liked to joke around with my friends about stuff like that but I was very rational, and still am. While unexplained phenomena can normally be explained rationally, to this day I have a difficult time understanding what happened that day. I am a firm believer in science and I am not religious (I used to be Catholic). I am twenty-seven now.

One day after school I walked to my friend's house. She lived about a mile from my parents' place. It was the last week of October and I remember that day as being unusually cold. It felt like winter. A lot of the neighbourhood trees were shedding their leaves, and I found myself wading through a sea of brown and orange as I walked up her driveway. My friend's parents were really into Halloween, as my parents have always been. When I get to her house I was greeted by a line of Jack-o-Lanterns on the front porch. The front yard was spangled with fake gravestones. She had two sisters that were in grade school at the time.

When I came over this particular day her whole family was out doing something, but I can't seem to remember where they were. I do remember thinking maybe she was gone, because her house looked empty. There were no cars in the driveway and the lights were out inside. For the sake of anonymity I will call my friend "Karen" from this point on, though that's not her real name. I rang the doorbell and waited for a few moments. Nothing happened. I took a step back from the porch and looked up at the upstairs windows of the house. Karen's house was huge. Her dad was a dentist and her mom was a prosecuting attorney. They lived in this gigantic two-storey house with a big basement. It must have been built a hundred years ago because the place was just creepy. They kept it in good shape but it was still undeniably old. The roof was tall and steep and the windows had old fashioned wood shutters that slammed into the house when the wind was blowing hard. I was startled then by the sound of a door slamming in the backyard. I looked around the edge of the house as Karen emerged from the back walkway. She said that her cats had destroyed their front screen door earlier in the day and they were trying not to use it until they got the screen replaced. She had about ten cats (no joke!).

Anyways getting to the point, about an hour later we were alone in her room playing around on her computer, when we heard music coming from downstairs. This wouldn't have been strange except her family was not home. We both thought someone was back so we checked the driveway, and there were no cars. The music continued for a minute or so before we decided to go and check it out. It sounded like classical music from the upstairs. When we got down to the main level we were both startled when we realized it was piano music. Karen's grandmother had lived with her for five years or so before she passed away the year before, leaving her old piano in the basement. It sounded like someone was in the basement playing the piano. Whoever it was was playing beautifully. There was one thing wrong about that, nobody else in her family knew how to play piano. It just sat down there with a sheet over the top.

We both stood in the kitchen for what seemed like forever, listening to the sad piano music droning up from the basement. I looked down the stairs and the lights in the basement were off. I was terrified. We both discussed who would go into the basement to check, but were equally freaked out. Neither of us wanted to go and see who was down there playing. I think five minutes or so passed when I finally got the courage to shout down the stairs. All I could say was "Who is that?" I know, real tough. The music stopped abruptly. Karen and I just stood there in the kitchen, not breathing, until she finally switched the light on in the basement from the top of the steps. We went down there together and the basement was empty. The sheet still sat over the piano, untouched. We called the cops!

To this day I have no logical explanation for what happened.

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Comments about this paranormal experience

The following comments are submitted by users of this site and are not official positions by yourghoststories.com. Please read our guidelines and the previous posts before posting. The author, mrdeagle, has the following expectation about your feedback: I will read the comments and participate in the discussion.

Thegrinch17 (guest)
 
15 years ago (2009-10-31)
Maybe Karen's Grandma was just stopping by to check up on her family & to say hello in her own way, by playing the piano! No need to be afraid if it was her spirit. Good story, Mrdeagle! 😊
mrdeagle (6 stories) (69 posts)
 
15 years ago (2009-10-31)
AussieRedDog: Thanks, it stills scares me when I think about it. I really was too afraid to go down there when the music was playing. I kind of wish I had. What do you mean the cellars? (sorry American ignorance) 😕
AussieRedDog (27 stories) (87 posts)
+1
15 years ago (2009-10-31)
Wow, that's a damned good story there. For once a story gave me the willies (and today is October 31st). I would have went down to check out what was down there... Then again... Ever went down the cellars to have a look around? 😨
mrdeagle (6 stories) (69 posts)
 
15 years ago (2009-10-30)
JamesRobiscoe: Ha ha, you didn't sound pretentious or like a wise guy. I wasn't being sarcastic or anything like that in my response. I probably could've been more clear about my beliefs to begin with. I base a lot of what I believe on science as the senses can be easily fooled. I try to look from every angle to figure out what has caused the event in question before I look to the paranormal as an explanation. That's all I meant. As for your question, I have encountered a few other strange things in my life for which I have no explanation. I am submitting another story today which (I hope) will be published within the next couple days. Look for it! It'll be called "Toybox" if the title isn't taken. 😁
JamesRobiscoe (419 posts)
 
15 years ago (2009-10-30)
MrDeagle--I apologize for sounding like some sort of wiseguy. Without their inflections my words can appear harsher than I mean, so I can learn about rephrasing, too.
I was merely trying to know how you distinguish "unexplained" and "illogical." (In college some math looked illogical to me but within its own system it was logical.) I'm all for debunking spurious judgments of the paranormal, same as any scientist must separate fact from opinion or theory.
I appreciate your tolerance and wonder if you/ve encountered other odd phenomena in the 18 years since.
mrdeagle (6 stories) (69 posts)
+1
15 years ago (2009-10-30)
hobbyholly: Yeah, the police showed up after ten minutes or so. Then her parents came home. Everyone searched the house high and low - with no result. There was nobody there (that we could see). As far as I'm concerned nothing like this happened again. My friend definitely was a little more wary of hanging out in her basement alone after this!

JamesRobiscoe: Thanks for the wise insight. My horizons have expanded over the years as I have witnessed things I couldn't explain more than once. When something like this happens I get more curious as to what could be happening around us that we can't see. I should have phrased my story a little differently; I do believe in ghosts. I believe that a soul can remain in our plane of existence after someone passes on, and there are most definitely things happening every day that are difficult if not impossible to explain. Call me a skeptic, but I try to find the most logical explanation before chalking things up to paranormal activity. I am not easily convinced of a haunting entity but I definitely believe they exist. 😳
hobbyholly (11 stories) (572 posts)
 
15 years ago (2009-10-30)
Hmm. Just curious: what happened when the cops got there? Did they come?

Did anything like that happen again?
JamesRobiscoe (419 posts)
 
15 years ago (2009-10-30)
MrDeagle--How rational is it to believe a thought exists? A soul or spirit? Love? If logic is logical, how about the concept that the illogical exists?
Did you and "Karen" believe your ears or your eyes?
If you believed both senses, maybe it's time to open the box and recognize that the seen and unseen co-exist, the heard and the unheard. Your logic won't evaoprate but merely grow larger.
deon1234 (7 posts)
 
15 years ago (2009-10-30)
I know how you feel my grandma died 5 years ago in her house I seen her ghost, but it wasn't at her home it was at ours. I just seen her walk past my mirror 2 times. So I ran out and went to my momma room and I slept in there for about 2 weeks. It was sooo freaky man.

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