Growing up in Hawaii I have been exposed to many stories of superstitions and ghost. Being that Hawaii is the ethnic melting pot of the world all the stories differ from ethnicity to ethnicity.
My Portuguese grandmother would tell stories of fetsedas, Portuguese witches that would claim children if someone other than their parents had harbored a want for them. Grandma would put her broom upside down nightly as this was a way too ward the witch off. My Hawaiian grandmother would forbid me to do anything like eating or cleaning at night because she said that I was doing it with demons that she called Kepaloa. Through my extended family I was told many details about the things I should avoid to bring attention to myself from the spirit world, such as not whistling at night or stepping on graves, etc. Well I have encountered ghosts despite their warnings.
Once I stayed at a friend's house in Paolo and woke in the early morning, around 2:30 am to a dark cloaked figure standing over me with its face close to mine, I screamed and it vanished as my friend's husband flew the door open and flipped on the light. I was so embarrassed and told him I thought that I just had a bad dream. The next morning I began to tell them what had happened and he angrily told me not to talk about it. I think he had seen it before and did not want to talk about it.
Where I live in Waianae I have been victimized many times by a ghost that is quite popular in Hawaii, "The Choking Ghost." It pins you down when you are sleeping and you cannot move. You scream out but no one around you can hear you. In severe cases it sits on your chest and you cannot breathe. The first time it came to me I fought to sit up and wriggled my way as I felt as if something was pushing my shoulders back. This occurred about 3 times before I realized that I could feel it's presence before it attacked me. I would open my eyes and feel like I was awake but would talk and anyone sleeping with me would continue sleeping, then it would suddenly pin me down. It is not a constant occurrence for me but is for many people I know. The similarities in all of our stories are remarkable.
Well my latest experience is happening in a house in Aiea. I am one of 5 caregivers for an 86 year old woman who has dementia. I have only worked for her for about 3 months and up until 2 weeks ago have had the night shift which runs from 12:30 am to 9:30 am. I started to notice that at around 2:30 am until 3:30 am there are many noises throughout the house. My patient's daughter explained that the house is old and that was to be expected. Mind you she does not live there, just visits. Well I took that with a pinch of salt until one morning at around 3:30 am I suddenly felt this ravenous hunger and had forgotten my lunch, so I went to the kitchen and got a piece of cheese and a slice of bread and went back to the patients room to eat it. As soon as I had finished the sandwich I heard the sound of heavy footsteps running across the roof right over my head and then stop. I was so scared I jumped up and locked the bedroom door. I then texted one of my co-workers because I did not want to call and wake her up so I figured if she was up she'd answer my text, well she did and I told her what happened, she called me a chicken and joked that it was probably cats. I was thinking, yeah maybe a lion. Well she didn't text me for a minute and then a text comes in, "why aren't you answering you're phone?" I got goose bumps and called her right away and told her it never rang, she calmed me down and the night got quieter.
After that the other noises continued to get worse, a fire alarm went off, LOUDLY, for no reason, the doorbell rang and there was no one there and the walls creaked and groaned like crazy. The T.V just shut off once while I had dozed off and when I had mentioned it to a co-worker she told me that I was lucky, once she dozed off and it was on a different channel when she got up.
The new things that have started to happen worry me. I used to call this spirit a prankster because it just seemed to want to scare you, not hurt you, but it's been physically doing things lately.
We hired two new people in the past month and the first lady fell asleep and woke because she felt like she had been electrocuted, she looked all around the couch to see where the jolt came from, there are no outlets in that area. She went back to sleep and got up again because something was pulling at her feet, like it was trying to drag her off the couch. She jumped up and ran to the patient's bedroom afraid to go out.
The next lady brought her husband with her to keep her company. The other night she told me he came to the patient's bedroom and was angrily asking why she didn't come when he yelled her name. She was startled, she answered that she didn't hear a thing. He said as was sleeping on the couch when he felt something pinning him down and he yelled out for her. She thought he just had a bad dream.
Well I've never told the two new ladies about my experiences because I don't want them to quit but the first lady told me a very scary story tonight.
She had gotten off at 9:30 and headed home. She got in her van and drove into her garage when she realized that there was no key in the ignition. She put the car in park and was perplexed. She looked into her bag and the keys were in there. Her husband, a military man, said that she had probably unconsciously took the keys out sometime after she started it and actually drove the car home and that the ignition needed fixing. She argued that it was impossible and had him start the car and try to pull the keys out many times before he gave up but still concluded that there was a logical explanation.
Tonight the atmosphere was chilly and precarious. I am wondering if our ghostly prankster is after more than just a scare.
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