IT'S ONE THING FOR A GHOST TO TRY AND GRAB YOU. IT'S ANOTHER THING WHEN IT FOLLOWS YOU HOME
How many of you can say that there's an actual haunted house in the city or town where you live? Well I can and it's half a mile from where I live now. The place is called the Mordecai House and it's one of the finest historic buildings in town. The original portion of the house dates from around 1785. Oh yeah and it's haunted. The ghost that inhabits the house is said to be the spirit of Mary Willis Mordecai Turk, who lived from 1858 to 1937. Witnesses say she appears as an apparition in a grey Nineteenth Century dress. She can occasionally be heard playing the piano in the downstairs drawing room, and visitors to the house have occasionally seen a grey mist hovering near that piano. Also witnesses say they've seen her looking out one of the windows at the top left corner of the house.
My story, or encounter if you will, happened about eleven years ago. At that time I worked about a mile away. I'd get off of work anywhere between 2:15 and 2:30 AM. Back then I had no problem walking home after work. It was almost a two mile walk which I considered exercise. My trek home would have me going right past the Mordecai House. Now just for the record in my life I have had plenty of experiences with what I'd say is paranormal. I don't know what else to call it. Some experiences were interesting and a few were unnerving to say the least. What I'm about to tell you started out as respecting the interest but ended in something weird.
Now let me explain the surroundings to give you an idea of what I'm about to describe. As you're walking down the sidewalk right before you come to the Mordecai House property you first pass a funeral home. OK yeah that's weird enough. Next you cross an alley enter rence and then you start to pass the property. Now on your right as you walk the brick paved sidewalk is a major street. Even after 2 AM there's still traffic going both ways especially on weekends. On the left side is the Mordecai House property. Left of the brick paved sidewalk is a line of grass. Then there's an old cast iron fence which is about four feet high. Behind it are a variety of shrubs / bushes. Then behind that there's an open grassy area with some picnic tables for visitors and some trees. From there the property slopes upward to the Mordecai House.
So my first encounter happened one night in the mid summer. Now just for the record 99.9% of the time I had never had a problem walking past this house. But at this specific time it was hot / humid. Yeah even at that time in the morning it is still muggy around here. So I'm walking past the house and I get near the end of the property when I just walk through this cold patch. Now the best way I can describe it is as if you're outside in the hot weather and you go into the house which is full blown air conditioning. I walked through it, felt the coldness and continued to walk on. I was back in the muggy humid air once again. Ah yeah I thought that was weird but I just continued home. There was no cool breeze happening. I had just walked through some cold patch of air. I had no explanation for it.
Now I can't give specific dates as to what happened next and when. I'll just say one night after the cold patch incident I was walking past the property. I was about at it's middle point when the bushes to my left moved. Now yeah it surprised me but I thought it was a rabbit that I scared. But the next couple of times it happened I knew there was no scared rabbit. One night I was walking past the house and a little further where I thought a rabbit moved the bushes previously some bushes moved again. Except this time it looked to me as if someone or some thing walked through the bushes but stopped at the fence. So yeah that freaked me out but what would happen next was actually far stranger.
On another night I was walking past the property and got close to where I felt that cold spot. Now at this point of the property there were some evergreen shrubs which at that time where 6 to 7 foot tall. As I was walking near those shrubs one of them moved. And when I was right next to em it was as if some one was behind em, spread em as if to grab me. I immediately bowed up as if to hit someone. I looked and there was nobody there. I mean I stood there staring and there was nobody behind those bushes.
So a few weeks went by and while walking home passed the Mordecai House into the Fall season nothing happened. Of cause when I walked passed the place I kept my eyes on those bushes. Now let me explain, about three quarters of the way on the street as your passing the property there's a street light. At the three quarter mark you will see your shadow on the ground as you're walking the sidewalk. Nothing had happened in a while and I was cool with that. But then a night came along which changed things. So I was walking passed the property obviously looking at the bushes as I passed. I did see my shadow on the sidewalk from the street light. I looked at the bushes again and then to my shadow on the sidewalk. Except this time not only did I see my shadow but I also saw another shadow slightly behind me. Let me tell ya I turned around and bowed up ready to punch someone out but there was no one there. I heard a rustling behind me in the shrubs and that was it.
After that incident I decided a little change was needed. So after that one when I'd walk home at night. Instead of walking past the Mordecai House I'd cross the street before I reached it. sure I still passed the house but had a two lane street between us. So weeks would go by. Fall turned into Winter and we had a bad one that year. I started catching rides home on Friday and Saturday nights as well for the next couple of months. For the three nights walking home it wasn't a problem. Most of the time when I passed the house I'd just glance over across the street and then continue on. But every once in a great while I'd look across the street at the house, the bushes, the fence line and get this feeling as if something was over there watching me. My only recourse was to say "fuck you" as I looked over at it. Basically I was telling the weird stuff to fuck off because you're not gonna get at me anymore. But it wouldn't be long till I realized I was wrong.
So one night in around Spring time I was on my usual trek home from work and passing the Mordecai House. And it was another one of those times where I felt I was being watched again. Once again I gave it the "fuck you" treatment and went on. I was at least a block down the street past the house when for some reason I stopped to look behind me. I don't why I did it. Honestly I just felt something and decided to look back up the street. A block away behind me I thought I saw a figure on the sidewalk but it moved to disappear in the shadows. I was like OK my eyes are playing tricks or maybe there's someone else walking down the street at this time at night. Normally it's not a regular thing but yeah once in a while I'll see somebody walking down the street or up it at that late of an hour. So I kept on walking.
I got more than a block down the street and I turned around again. This time I saw a figure on the sidewalk for a few seconds but then it blended into the trees. It was maybe a block or more away. So now I thinking OK I was getting followed and the person is hiding when I look back. Fine so I pulled my knife out of my work bag and continued on. You wanna try and rob me well that's not going to happen. So the next stretch of sidewalk passed some apartments with the sidewalk lined with oak trees. At the end of the line of those apartments the sidewalk slopped down. So my last look behind me at an advantage was there. So I turned to look and yeah I saw a full figure maybe sixty yards behind me. But again once I saw the outline then it would move to obscurity to the darkness. At that point I was in the open passing a church parking lot.
I was going down hill and hustling it. Once passed the church I was right by the gas station and I turned around to look one more time. And yeah a block away at the point where the trees were was a figure black amidst the darkness and shadows but still was there. It was a silhouette of a figure. So I then hustled it across the lot of the gas station, walked passed the buildings to the end. There I stopped at the edge to look around the corner because now this figure would have to come into the light. I looked up the road but saw nothing. Then I figured the advantage now was mine plus I wasn't about to ambush the guy. So I ran down the hill, crossed the street to the strip mall and ran behind another building to get another vantage point. Once again my mind said are you nuts? You've got cover and concealment so I ran over the gravel parking lot and on to the street of my neighborhood. I figured I was home free now but unfortunately what welcomed me next was not so cool.
So when walking into my neighborhood you first cross a bridge and the street for a small stretch is dark. You then come up to a Y in the road. To the right is my street and to the left is another. In-between the streets is an island with a huge Magnolia tree. On this night as I was passing the island I saw a figure there by the tree. There is a street light behind the island but all I could see was a silhouette. So as I walked passed I kept one eye on this figure. I was also thinking that there was no way that whoever was following behind me all that way got in front of me to meet me there.
So now I was walking up my street keeping one eye behind me to see what was going on. Basically I'm walking up a hill so when I hit the crest that was where I had to turn left onto another street, my street. One last glance down the hill I saw nothing so I kinda bolted up the street. Again I was walking up a slight hill, hit the crest and then it was all down hill to where I lived. In front of the place I lived at, back then, there was a parking lot. I stopped there to look up the street before heading to my door. At the top of the hill where I had just came from I saw a full silhouette of a figure. The light from a street lamp was behind it. And while I was looking at this figure it would move as if it wasn't solid.
That was enough high strangeness for me. I walk across the parking lot of the apartment building I lived at of the time with a roommate. I pretty much slam into the front door, I walk right past my roommate who's watching TV in the living room not saying a word. I go into my bedroom and sit next to a window watching through the blinds in the dark. I watched for a little while but then figured wait a minute you're too close to the window. So I backed my chair up and made sure I still had a clear view of the street outside. I sat there staring, waiting for some sign but there was nothing. The next thing I did was go outside to have a smoke on my front porch. Actually I had a couple of smokes and just looked around but I saw nothing.
To this day I don't have an actual explanation for what happened that night. I do know that afterwards I started taking cab rides home instead of walking. I've moved to another house in the neighborhood which I share with a lady friend. We've had no supernatural experiences in the four years together. Well there was one but.... Anyways I have passed by the Mordecai House late at night since that last weird experience. My answer as I'd walk passed it is now always "Hey How Ya Doin?"
Nuff Said until the next story......
Written by Mr. Wolf
