Reader Submission: The Couple Trapped in Time
“In 1990 or 1991, I lived with my family in a small town in West Virginia. We had just moved into a rental house, one the owner guessed to be over a hundred years old. While there, everyone in my family – my ex and I, our two teenage sons, our 8-year-old daughter, and our two toddler sons – experienced something strange.
The first strange thing we noticed was an occasional cold spot near the bathroom door. Later, we heard bumps and the occasional thud and sometimes an object would move around or disappear. For example, we’d leave a pen on a table and it would turn up in a completely different spot. We also heard footsteps which we could track because of the creaky floors.
One time I was in the basement when I heard what sounded like a chest of drawers tumbling down the stairs. Everyone in the house heard the crash and came running from all directions to see what had fallen. However, after searching the home we couldn’t find anything wrong.
Though we didn’t have any of the usual haunted house stuff – strange smells, whispers in the night, shadows lurking in the corner – we all knew something was off. We didn’t think we were in any danger, however, so we accepted the strange events and went on with our daily lives.
However, the eerie happenings seemed to increase in duration the longer we lived there, and they seemed to be focused on men. One night, I was sitting on the edge of my bed, taking off my shoes, when I felt something strange. Looking up, I saw a woman floating in the hallway. She was wearing old-fashioned clothing, like something you’d see in the 1800s, and just hovered above the floor, staring at me. She was frozen, yet alive. Solid, not transparent. Strangely, the woman seemed like a photo. She did not seem to fit into our world.
I know today she was waiting for me to make a move, so I did. I said: ‘So you’re the one who’s in the house, doing all these things.’ About twenty seconds later, the woman did a ninety degree and floated off towards the kitchen. She made no sound and didn’t move her body at all. She simply floated away. I didn’t pursue her. I just took off my shoes and went to med.
The next day, I told my family what happened and we all just accepted the weird event and moved on. However, the next day, right at the same time, I looked up and saw a man in the hallway instead of a woman. He was also wearing olden clothes, though he stood on the floor instead of floating over it. Like the ghost woman from the night before, the man had no expression on his face and he seemed frozen and out of place.
I did the same thing I did the night before. I spoke to the entity, saying something like: ‘So you must be the man of the house, the husband of the woman I saw last night.’ At first, he didn’t move, but twenty seconds later he disappeared completely. He looked like a series of dots blinking out. Gone. The next day I told my family, and they once again accepted the story and moved on. We weren’t afraid, just a little concerned about whatever was in the house.
The man and woman never appeared again. No one saw anything at all, although we continued to hear footsteps, creaking boards, and the occasional bumps and thuds. However, I can say no objects moved or disappeared again.
Today, looking back, I think the ghosts, or whatever they were, just wanted to be noticed. They were like a memory, a residual, with some degree of intelligence. I think they were something “stuck in time,” living there in a loop of sorts, not sure what to do next.
Anyway that’s my “ghost story.” It happened. I cannot explain it. So I accepted the event and moved on.”
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