Читать книгу Colorado Ghost Stories - Antonio Boone's Garcez - Страница 27

I interviewed Paul at his sister’s home in Denver. She mentioned that her brother was on his way to her home from his home in Colorado Springs, and that his story was a fascinating one. Paul, and his partner’s, haunting experiences might be the best account of a ghost I’d ever heard. With an obvious smile on my face, I assured her that after we finished up with the interview, I would decide if his story would be one that I’d consider including in this book. As it so happened, Paul’s story is one of those, which in my estimation is quite fascinating, and gives a potential home buyer good reason to think seriously, about investing in any property which might cause one to feel the least bit uneasy.

— Antonio

“Originally I’m from Denver. I was born there and after graduating from college was hired as a school teacher, and worked at my profession for just four years. I retired from the school system for health reasons. One day a student with whom I had a disagreement with, decided he would take revenge for my recommendation to expel him. He dropped a chair on me as I was walking down a flight of stairs. My doctor later informed me that I might have been easily killed by that falling chair. The injuries I sustained were to my upper spine, and one neck bone that was fractured when I fell and fell down the stairs. Because the student was a minor, not much in the way of punishment was handed to him, at least not to my satisfaction. So now, today I’m forcibly retired and making the best of a situation that could have been quite a lot worst.

Two years after the incident, and after completing the mandatory rehabilitation program, my partner Rodney and I decided to move to Colorado Springs, purchase a house and invest in our future by purchasing two other houses that needed upgrading. These two investment properties would need improvements to bring them up to a level where we could rent them, but with a little hard work and of course money, we were confident we accomplish this.

At the time, real estate was a good investment, refurbishing properties having been neglected, and putting them back on the market was proving to be a very good way to go. Before I met Rodney, he had experience doing this to one house and then another until he had amassed a nice personal, little financial nest egg. When I came into the picture, as a couple, we decided to pull our resources together and jointly work towards some sense of financial freedom. Anyone who has ever been a teacher knows, the time and emotional work that is involved in our profession is rarely reflected in our pay-checks. The unexpected accident that was thrust upon me, put a strain on us, and delayed our future plans, but we got back on track nonetheless.

So, as for my story, I’ll begin by telling you that I was never so scared as when I experienced spirits at one of our properties. I never, ever thought that I would have such an encounter, I didn’t even believe in such things as ghosts, but I certainly do now.

The property where this took place was on the east side of town, on a street off of Palmer Park Boulevard. Before Rodney and I purchased this house, I was very hesitant to even consider it because of the terrible state it was in. It definitely needed so much work to bring it back to a somewhat livable condition that I thought, no way was I going to be a part of this money pit. But Rodney convinced me in the end, and in a few days I signed the real estate contract and soon I was its somewhat proud owner.

We decided to do most of the demolition work ourselves, which meant removing trash, a non-load bearing wall, cabinets, doors and a few windows. For all the major construction, we hired a licensed contractor. I remember the first morning that I entered the house, I was by myself because Rodney was away at the time, working at his office.

As I entered the house, the first thing that struck me was its putrid scent. The odor of what seemed to resemble rotting wood and moldy carpets, hung heavy in the air. I also felt that there was an overall eeriness to the house. It was a weightiness that pushed on me from all sides. I immediately had the unreasonable thought that a serious illness was about to come on. I knew this was absurd, but that is what I was feeling. It was an irrational, and very weird, negative feeling.

I immediately opened wide the front door and went about the house opening all the windows. When I walked toward one of the bedroom windows, I noticed that there was a person’s shadowy outline on the curtain, standing outside, in the back yard. I took hold of the window’s frame and pulled the shear curtains aside, and the figure was gone! I opened the window and looked all around the small yard, but he was gone! Strangely, I never did actually see him, even after searching the backyard and checking the door locks on the gates, he just ‘poof’ disappeared!

I was concerned that perhaps this might have been a burglary in progress that I had unknowingly stopped. So I cautiously went back into the house and cautiously began to investigate every corner and room. That’s when I noticed the pictures—crayon marks on the walls in one of the bedrooms. I did not expect to see them. It was as if a child had chosen a small section of the wall, a six- by-four area to draw a series of pictures. There were about eight of these faint pictures that were about four feet high from the floor. As far as subject matter, they were what a child would draw, clouds, houses, animals, etc. I didn’t pay them any further attention, and chose that bedroom to begin the cleaning.

I began by removing the carpet at one of the room’s corner. As I was cutting it into sections before carrying it out to the front yard, I pulled up a three-by-three section of carpet by the wall where the child’s drawings were. Suddenly, I was hit on the back of my head with a flying roll of toilet paper! I dropped what I was doing and spotted the roll of paper, rolling along the floor, until it stopped against the wall. I didn’t hear footsteps or any other sound.

I called out, “Rodney, what are you doing here?” I waited for his voice to answer, and when none came, I jumped up and walked to the living room calling his name, but he was nowhere. I walked to the front yard and didn’t see a car, or sign of anyone else on the street. Instantly, I became so upset, that I didn’t want to return inside the house. I was genuinely scared at that point.

I threw my carpet knife inside the living room, closed the front door, locked it and got into my car and drove back home. You need to keep in mind the time of day was early morning, the sun was out, and people were already busy with their day’s activities. Once I arrived home, I called Rodney and described my experience. He said he would return home at his lunch break so I could give him a more detailed explanation.

When he finished hearing my story, he said he would not return to his office and would accompany me to the house. He changed his office clothes and when we got to the house, we entered the front door and were hit with the reeking stench of what resembled old urine. “What’s that!” Rodney said, “What died in here!” Because the windows were still opened, I surmised that whatever was causing the stench must have come in from the outside. Both of us walked all around the outside of the house, and didn’t see or smell anything close to what we smelled in the house.

Things were getting stranger and stranger. Rodney was first to speak about the possibility that maybe the house was haunted. I didn’t want to even speak the words, but when he said that, I looked at him and said, “Yeah, well what could have hit me with that paper roll, and how about that figure I saw outside the window!”

We simply could not explain why these odd and ghostly things were happening. I really felt very reluctant to go back inside the house. As we were standing on the driveway, discussing the predicament, Rodney turned to face the small kitchen widow that was above the sink, raised his arm to point and said, “Who’s that?” I turned and spotted, just as he was disappearing, the same figure of the man I had seen earlier, from inside the kitchen now looking out!

We both ran to the sidewalk and didn’t need any further evidence to convince us that what we had both seen was a ghost! The house was as haunted as any house could be, and so we decided to put it back on the market!

We swore not to tell anyone of our experience, but we couldn’t keep such a story to ourselves. That same Saturday, we had a pre- planned dinner party with two other male couples, and we described to them our house and what we had seen. The response from our friends was predictable; they simply didn’t believe us and had a good laugh at our expense. Rodney and I looked at each other and without saying a word, we decided to simply go along with the fun and act as if we had just been caught spinning a long tale.

After the evening’s get-together was over, we knew that our personal story with our friends was not believed as being truthful, and could it be by anyone else? So in an attempt to save ourselves any problems, we’ve not disclosed this to anyone else, until my interview with you today.

We sold the house and have not had any further contact with the new owners after signing the closing papers. Personally I don’t venture out to that area of town if I can help it, and definitely not to the street where the house stands. I’m not quite sure why we experienced the ghost at the house, what it wanted, or why it was hanging out at the property, but that’s for someone else to discover. Rodney and I don’t want to mess around with the “spiritual.” We believe it’s best to let God handle those matters.”