FALL 1992
My family lived in a double wide trailer here for about 3 months in 1992. I remember it always seeming dark inside, even though it had several large windows. I was consistently creeped out the short time we lived there. My bedroom was a small, windowless interior room. I swore I could see things in the dark at night even though it was pitch black with the lights off. That part could have been all in my head. I was only 7 years old at the time. However, my older brother (aged 10) had a bedroom at the rear of the house with a large window that looked out into the massive cornfield behind us. He heard tapping on his window and swore he saw things moving in the fields. Even outside in the daylight felt ominous.
There was a rec room built onto the side of the house, and we had our play room there. My brother and I did NOT like to be in there by ourselves. I refused to play in there unless my brother was with me, and vice versa. Our furnace caught fire 2 times while we lived there and once after. I remember the first time. The night before, I was having a hard time walking down the hallway to the bathroom because I was terrified for some reason. Like someone was waiting for me around the corner. My step-dad was poking fun at me a bit for being scared. My mom interjected and suggested he walk down that hall in the dark and get the hairbrush out of the bathroom for me. He started walking down the hall, and stopped about 3 feet in. Then he slowed down and was walking very deliberately and carefully. He turned the corner to grab the brush, and the furnace in the next room popped loudly. Scared him half to death. He ran down the hall back into the living room and apologized to me. Said it felt like someone was on his heels as he came down the hall. Take note that my stepdad is rarely scared by this kind of thing. I hadn’t seen him like that before or since. Some 3 or 4 hours later, I remember my mom coming into my room to get me up and take me outside. The fire department was there, and we all stood on the other side of the street. The fire was thankfully small, and we got the all-clear to go inside. The landlord fixed the furnace right away.
The next few weeks were really spooky. We were all on edge. I spent every moment I could playing outside because the inside of the house gave me the creeps. My mom suddenly had birds pecking on her bedroom windows all day long. I could barely go into my room, and begged my mom to let me sleep with her. She didn’t allow it, so I slept with my head under the covers. My step dad would sometimes come sit with me when he came home from the late shift so I could fall asleep.
The furnace caught fire again in the middle of the night. This time my parents insisted the landlord replace the furnace, and he did. He was always really nervous when he came out to the house, which I thought was weird but also understandable looking back. After that second fire, my parents decided it was time to look for somewhere else post haste. We moved out a week later. About a month after we moved out, my mom saw in the newspaper that the house had burnt to the ground. There was nothing left. There is still nothing on that lot to this day.
Submitted by Holly S., Liminal Ambassador