After my parents long and bitter divorce my mother lost custody of me for child abuse and neglect. The court awarded full custody of me to my father. After the dust settled on the divorce decree, my dad bought this old house in a small town in Southwestern IA population approximately 323. I'm convinced that this town was on a map simply because Burlington Northern ran through it and had a train stop there, but who knows.
A couple of years after we moved there, my older siblings were all gone from the nest and out on their own. I was only 14 so I was there alone with my dad and four dogs; one very large burly German shepherd/timber wolf mix named Sarge, some long haired mutt my dad adored named Raggamuffin, a beagle, Mr. Jasper and my puppy, a small tan colored mutt, named Snuffles. My dad worked really hard on a graveyard shift in the big city 48 miles away so I was left to my own devices basically until I turned 18. I explain this situation so you can get a feel for how frightening some of this stuff was when I was home by myself all the time at night. Basically I saw my dad on weekends - during the week our paths didn't really cross because he was gone by the time I got home from school and he was asleep by the time I left in the morning to go back to school.
Anyway - it was what it was.
I didn't really care for the house my dad bought, he was thrilled to be putting down roots somewhere and not paying rent to someone. And it was his 'handy-man's dream" because this place needed a lot of work; work which never really got done in the end because it burned to the ground 6 or 7 years after I left home and he had to put a manufactured home there in its spot. But this house was probably easily over 100 years old to start out with. It was originally only 4 rooms and whoever had it before us added on two additional rooms and an upstairs; however, they neglected to put in any duct work so these add- on rooms were not heated. I mention this because the room I stayed in required a little portable space heater to keep the area half-way warm in the dead of winter.
Like any other dumb/bored (insert whatever adjective you can relate to) teenager who thinks it's cool or exotic to mess with an OUIJA board, I was no exception. It was the first thing I bought with my babysitting money and even though I'd been warned by one person not to use it by myself I ignored the advice and went ahead and used it by myself anyway. A MENSA candidate I have never been. I was merely fascinated when the pointer thing moved around the board by itself sometimes - there were instances when I wasn't even touching it and the thing went ahead and continued spelling stuff out to me. A few of my friends didn't believe this, they said it shouldn't even work that way - using it by yourself they said 'you have to have at least 2 people!' Well - hogwash -it's possible, and I know it, to use one by your lonesome if you're crazy enough to try it.
I started talking to a spirit, supposedly of a young man; he said he was 23 when he died. He claimed he'd been killed in a duel over a woman in the 1800's and he went on to describe all the blood that stained the snow around his body after he'd been stabbed to death. It was really a fascinating story to a 14 year old. It had drama and intrigue it was my own esoteric soap opera - I was always tuning in for the latest installment! He told me his name which I won't mention here -since I believe now it wasn't ever a human's name. But I started to feel like I had made a new, albeit unseen, "friend".
Well it went along without any weirdness for awhile, but eventually the messages he was giving me got a little flirtatious he suggested I come be with him (which apparently didn't 'dawn' on me at 14 that I'd have to kill myself in order for that to occur); after awhile however, the messages became downright p0rnographic and I really didn't want to continue. I thought this had gotten out of hand and I didn't want any more to do with it. So I put the board away deep in the closet and tried to forget about it.
It was embarrassing, this whole experience, because some people claimed your own psyche moved the pointer around and that it was really stuff in your own mind that came out in the board messages. I didn't want anyone thinking I was some pervert sending myself twisted sexual messages from my imaginary boyfriend.
The first strange occurrence after the board was retired happened when I had blown out a candle in my room before going to sleep for the night. A couple hours later I woke up to a rather loud WHOOSH sound; the sound you hear when you pour an accelerant on something then throw a match on it. That's what it sounded like - before I could roll over to see what was going on, the glass candle holder shattered and went all over the floor. I figured I must not have blown the thing out as well as I thought I had -so I swept up the mess and went back to bed.
Not long after that incident something happened with the temperature in my bedroom. It was winter time and normally I'd have my little space heater turned on and the room would get warm enough for me to be reasonably comfortable but it seemed that I didn't need my space heater much. In fact, it got so warm in my room I actually unplugged the thing and put it in my closet. Gradually, it became so warm in my room that I had difficulty staying awake in there. I'd go in to read a book or write a letter and I'd be conked out in a matter of 15 or 20 minutes. It was annoying that this was happening to me, but it's not like I was really missing out on much I thought (reference population of town above).
Well one weekend, after the light bulb burned out in the overhead socket of my room my dad had to come in with a step ladder to change it out for me. While he was working on unscrewing the light fixture and changing the bulb, he had developed sweat beads on his face and forehead -he finally said "My God can you turn that damn heater DOWN I'm broiling in here!" I told my dad I couldn't do that because it wasn't on - I showed him that it was in the closet and not plugged in. He looked puzzled and said "Well I must have the oil stove on too high I'll turn it down". But when he left my room, he noticed the temperature in the living room was perfect. He told me just to leave my door open after that and maybe some of the heat would dissipate that way.
Some days later, after I came back to my bedroom from using the bathroom, I noticed that there was actually a wall of heat that didn't gradually melt into the living room from my doorway-but it was a reality that I could stand with half my body in the area right before my doorway and it would be hot and the other half of my body in the living room - would be fine. I thought that was really weird! But even then - I just denied that anything was wrong-I ignored it.
The next thing that developed wasn't as easy to shrug off because day by day it grew more alarming; and that was how the dogs now reacted to my bedroom. Previously, I had trouble keeping them OUT of my room -they were almost annoying with their constant jumping on my bed to get petted or wanting to sleep on the rug next to my bed and now - they came no where near my bedroom door. In fact, they stood out in the living room 5 to 6 feet away and just whined, shook, growled and paced back and forth in agitation - staring at my room. This was especially disconcerting because the giant Sarge, who never showed any fear of anything and now to see him avoiding my room like the plague was downright spooky. This dog had previously been my greatest protector - he followed me wherever I went and I never had to worry about anyone grabbing me he would have taken them down or died trying.
The culmination of this came to head when I went to bed one night, door open so maybe the cooler air of the living room would get into my overly warm room and I was woke up to the sound of something banging on the front door. I mean it was LOUD - it shook the glass in the door and I thought for sure it would break and my dad would be upset when he got home in the morning. I jumped up and ran out to the dining room where the front door was located and turned on the porch light - looked out the window and there was nothing there! I didn't even see foot prints in the snow around the front yard or on the porch or anything to indicate someone was outside. I looked out the side windows - nothing and no cars on the street or in the driveway. I decided that I must have been dreaming and I woke myself up from it somehow. I went back to bed.
Before I could drift off to sleep, another 3 loud bangs on the door that led out to the side patio from the living room jolted me upright. I got up again - turned the light on for that area and once again - nothing. No footprints, no people - no nothing. I was now officially scared, and I was literally all alone because the dogs were in the enclosed back porch sound asleep! I thought maybe I was going nuts or maybe that crazy friend of mine from up the street who liked to play practical jokes on everyone had snuck out of his house and came down to torment me. I'm sure that's something he would have found hilarious -but with no sign of him or his red hair or any footprints it was hard to blame this on him.
I went back to bed feeling extremely uneasy and I wasn't there long before another 3 loud bangs happened on my bedroom door -WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! There was nothing but darkness. Since this came closer and closer it occurred to me there wasn't anything left to bang on between me and that door so I was probably next. I grabbed a bible that was on a shelf over my bed and held it to my chest. I begged God to make it stop and make it go away; I was horrified by this time. I knew He must have heard me because not long after I yelled for help, the temperature in my room started to fall, and without my space heater going it got super cold like it would have been. I got up, turned the lights on in the living room and counted my blessings.
I think Parker brothers should just stop manufacturing those hideous things; they're not toys and no one should be using them for anything. The board ended up in the hands of a youth pastor shortly after this, who claimed to have known the proper way of disposing of it. I wasn't present for its binding or destruction or whatever he did with it. The early evening following the good riddance of that board, a neighbor lady who was also one of my 4-H leaders, stopped me as I was walking up the sidewalk to my house. She said she thought she saw my dog get hit by a car on the outskirts of town. I told her I didn't think so because it was an inside dog and my dad always let him back in before he left for work -I took him out again when I got home. She said Amy, I really think this was your dog please come with me. I knew this lady was really sweet and good-natured, so I didn't want to just blindly dismiss her idea and blow her off. I got in her car and rode with her to the edge of town; the edge where the cemetery was. Sure enough, a small tan heap of what used to be my dog was lying on the side of the road. I jumped out of her car and went to pick up my pup and I felt sick to my stomach he was limp in my hands and the light in his eyes was gone. I started crying and fell on my knees by the side of the road there. In my head I heard loud cackling laughter, my heart froze; and some genderless voice spat out "this is just the beginning B*tch!"
I will always believe that this was retaliation for the destruction of that OUIJA board and my rejection of the spirit I once entertained so many times. I can't prove that because I know that laughter and that voice was in my head, Mrs. "M" was standing there (probably feeling helpless) and if it was something that was audible I'm sure she would have been hysterical herself. I'm going to end my story here because I don't want to get into what happened in my life after that. I'll tell you that I had more issues and more problems until I fully surrendered to God and the Lord Jesus Christ. It took another 14 years before that happened.
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