Ghostly Relatives

I have kept the names out of the story to keep the family anonymous, since we still have relatives there.

I grew up in a little lake side town in Wisconsin called Algoma. I had a cousin who drowned in an accident in a river a little over a block from where they lived. I was younger at the time, probably about 11 or 12 years old. I don't know a lot of the exact details of his death. The reason that I even mention this is to give a little insight to the rest of the story.

After my cousin passed away, my parents decided that we should move into the apartment that was once occupied by my Aunt and Uncle. It was a four bedroom house so it was big enough for our growing family.

There are four bedrooms and one bath in this upstairs apartment. Our parents bedroom and the room they called the nursery was at one end, and the other two bedrooms, were at the other end. The kitchen, bathroom, and living room separated the bedrooms.

My oldest brother and I shared a bedroom, even though there were two at that end of the house. My youngest brother slept down by my parents. The unused room used to belong to my deceased cousin, and so it was used for storage only.

I remember getting up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, and of course would always close the door. I would hear footsteps going back and fourth outside the door. It sounded like someone going from my parents bedroom and back to our bedroom. When I would get done, I would walk back and check on my brother, who would always still be sleeping. Then go down and check on my parents, who would still be sleeping. This continued for years.

When mom decided that I was old enough to have my own room. I was moved into my cousins old room, that was also being used for storage. My mom had painted the room a sunny yellow color, to help me adjust.

I had a set of bunk beds that I slept on. After the first couple of nights, it started. The first thing was the door. My parents had installed a hook lock on the outside of the door to keep us kids out. The door itself never shut completely tight. I was sitting watching TV, on the bottom bunk, and all of a sudden the door sucked shut. Thinking it was my little brother playing tricks, I got up to open the door, except it wouldn't open! I started to panic, and was really pulling on it. All of a sudden, it opened right up. I walked out into the living room, to see it dark. Everyone was in bed. I walked next door to my brother's room, to find him in a very deep sleep. It kept happening from that point on. I never mentioned it to my mother, to keep from upsetting her.

One night, I was watching TV very late at night. I started to doze off as I often did. All of a sudden, I felt arms come across me, as I laid there on my back, and hold me down. It was like someone had their fingers laced together over my stomach. At the same time, the door sucked shut again. I panicked. It only lasted a minute or two, but as soon as it let up, I was out of there!

She did mention to us in later years, after we moved out, that when we first moved into the apartment, she had put my brother in that room, but was having a problem getting him to sleep in there. He kept talking about the little boy who was playing cars with him. She would constantly sit in the living room at night, hearing him talking and would tell him to "go to bed". One night, after about the fiftieth time of yelling at him, she said she went to the door. As she opened it, she saw my brother's hot wheel cars floating in a circle. She watched for about 30 seconds, and looked over to see my brother sound asleep. She looked back to the cars in time to see them fall.

She also mentioned that she used to hear the footsteps going up and down the hall at all hours of the night. She said that she used to say "go to bed " and say my cousin's name, and the walking would stop.

I was 14 when we moved out, and nothing ever seemed to happen when we had other people over. But, it seems that when we moved on, so did our ghost!