While living in the Florida Keys I had the opportunity to live on a beautifully landscaped property with all the tropical fixins. The house was an old converted one bedroom one bath fishing shack that had been turned into a two bedroom two bath comfy ranch style home with a large living room and a studio where a carport used to be.
The backyard was luscious with loads of tropical plants and trees, all privacy fenced in from the neighbors. A large deck had been erected to cover any yard there may have been to allow the placement of a large swim/hot tub spa, along with two large outbuildings to accommodate guests with laundry/kitchen facilities.
The master bedroom/bath took up one whole side of the house as did the living room and studio area on the other end. In between the two halves of the house was the kitchen, another bath and the second bedroom which I turned into an office.
My partner and I at the time were staying in separate homes. I was living in the fishing shack, painting, cleaning, and doing the usual chores required before moving into a new place, when the previous renters had left in a hurry. While my partner was staying in the house we were vacating, he was packing, cleaning, and doing the normal chores required when you move out of a rental.
Early one morning around 5:30, I was asleep in the master bedroom located next to the kitchen and the front door. I was awakened by the sounds of cabinet doors in the kitchen slamming, muffled voices and the sound of the front door slamming shut. I jumped out of bed and ran into the kitchen to find nothing had been disturbed. I had just heard what sounded like a fight in the kitchen between people but yet there was no sign of any fight.
I called my partner immediately and said, “What the hell are you doing coming in here slamming cabinet doors and slamming the front door?” He said, “What the hell are you talking about, I’m in bed with the dogs and cats.”
I apologized for waking him and told him what I had heard, then I shrugged off the experience and started my day setting up the kitchen, silverware in the silverware drawer, plates in cabinets, pots and pans in their place, etc.
The second bedroom I had set up as an office but also doubled as a bedroom. I had a twin size bed in that room for me to meditate on and also a place for my daughter to sleep when she would come to visit from college. It was in this room where the story begins, and more stories are to follow.
I was sitting at my desk on a beautiful Saturday afternoon doing paperwork on the computer when I heard pounding coming from the closet behind me. The closet doors were left open because I had file cabinets in them and when I spun around to look toward the noise, no one was there. I jumped up from my chair and went to the studio that my partner had turned into a TV room, and thought maybe he was hanging a picture on the wall because the TV room shared the same wall as my office closet.
I found my partner sitting on the couch watching a football game with a bare wall behind him. I asked him if he had been pounding on the wall to hang a picture or just knocking on the wall since the wall was behind his office desk, he said he hadn’t been sitting at his desk and he hadn’t been pounding on the wall, and he hadn't heard anything. Now my suspicious were aroused. Two encounters, with no logical explanation to either one of them. I believed now that I had landed in a ghost story.
I’ve never feared ghosts as I have seen them on and off my whole life, but this was different. This wasn’t the ghost of my dead uncle walking through the room, or my dead grandfather pacing the floors, this was them trying to get my attention.
Believe it or not, I didn’t pay too much attention to that experience either, I walked back into my office and continued my work with no more interruptions, until it happened again a few days later. This time I banged on the closet wall with my fists, shouting, “Stop it!” and that seemed to have taken care of it, at least for now.
I was the one that set up the kitchen, but for the life of me I couldn’t remember where I had put anything. I would open what I thought was the silverware drawer to find kitchen utensils, or open the drawer for a kitchen towel to find foil and parchment paper. I had never experienced anything like this before, it was like I was literally living in an alternate universe.
Not long after that while I lay in bed late one night having trouble sleeping, I heard what sounded like a party outside my window. The window faced the street so I thought maybe my neighbors where having an impromptu celebration, and in the Keys you never know. I pulled back the curtains and looked outside to see the serene darkness and calmness that comes with the Florida Keys night to find no one was there. Again I brushed it off as another ghostly experience, but that soon would change.
Not long after the ghost party outside my window, I was awakened by a dark figure standing over me. It was a large shadow, not of a man, larger than a man, I was startled and as I lifted my head to get a better look, the figure quickly covered me and grabbed me by the throat. I passed out to awaken in the morning hours gasping for breath. That wasn’t the first time I had seen my shadowy friend, but it was the first time he had ever touched me.
At this point I started to make inquiries. I called the landlord and asked if any of her previous tenants had complained about strange happenings in the house, and her answer was, “Yes”.
I didn’t dig deeper into the ghostly complaints because we were in the process of buying a house and moving away from the Keys, but I did do a cleansing. And I hope that worked, because the folks moving in after us were a young couple with a baby on the way.
Boo!