Halloween is right around the corner, and who doesn’t enjoy a good scare—that bump in the night you can’t explain, the feeling someone is watching you, though you’re alone or a tale that puts goosebumps on your skin?
In fact, most people I’ve encountered have had their own personal brush with the paranormal. Myself included. My personal ghost story goes a little something like this:
When I was young, someone very close to me died. A friend of the family Mr. Reed was an older, grandfatherly type who was very kind and loved to give me little gifts. One of the things I remember most about him was his walk. He always used a cane; therefore, he had a distinctive gait. It was a two-footed shuffle step that ended with his cane taping the ground. Shuffle, shuffle, tap. Shuffle, shuffle tap. I always knew he was near by the sound of his walk.
One day, soon after he’d passed I was in my bedroom playing, and I heard a noise in the hallway. Shuffle, shuffle, tap. Shuffle, shuffle, tap. I peeked my head out of my room and looked down the hall. I didn’t see anything unusual, so I went back to playing. Shuffle, shuffle, tap. Shuffle, shuffle, tap. I heard it again, but this time it sounded closer. I got up and stepped into the hallway.
Nothing.
I walked down the hall to the kitchen where my mother and uncle were talking. I asked them whether anyone else was in the house. They looked at me strangely but said no. I asked whether either of them had been in the hall. Again, they said no, and asked me why.I told them I heard Mr. Reed.
Was it my imagination? A coincidence?
Who knows?
I like to think it was Mr. Reed visiting me one last time.
Happy Halloween.
Toni O.