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MasterCaneman -> RE: The Person Beneath Me (5/26/2013 8:39:08 PM)
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Yes. Saw one, heard one. When I was seven, my older sister had her sweet sixteen party at our house. Older place, built in the 1880's, former rooming house. While her friends were singing and having a good time, I was hovering around the rear (waiting for cake, natch), and for some reason I looked back at her room. There was a figure standing there, in a white shirt, dark coat and pants, very pale. I turned back, thinking it was one of her friends, then I turned back. He was gone.
I went into her room (we lived on the second floor) to look for him. I wasn't stupid-if I caught him smoking dope or stealing I'd have some major coin to use when I wanted something in the future. Nobody there. Nowhere. Not in the closet or under the bed. I even looked at her window to see if he was hanging outside (long story, it had happened before). Nothing. It wasn't until after I scored cake and ice cream that I realized I may not have seen a living person.
Fast forward a couple months. My bedroom wasn't really a bedroom, rather, it was just a large antechamber to the bathroom, for all intents and purposes. It's 2AM, everyone's asleep, and my dad's working the graveyard shift at the plant. All of a sudden, I hear this male voice announce me name, clear as a bell. I know I was wide-awake because I heard the people downstairs come in from the bar. Freaked me the fuck out.
Later on I learned that the house I lived in had been a rooming house around the turn of the 20th century. During the Spanish Flu epidemic, there had been a couple of deaths on our floor, an older man who worked for the railroad, and a little girl. My mom had seen her, and I guess I had 'heard' him. The young man? A few years before (1913), there was a 22 year old man who worked as a bookkeeper for one of the factories who lived on our floor. He was engaged to a young lady, but just before the wedding, she'd called it off to marry another guy. Despondent, the dude shot himself in the room that became my sisters room. Sorry for such a long story, but I'm drunk and the words flow better, a la Hemingway...
TPBM just got a cold chill in their spine reading that...
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