Mr. Holt
From: Rose (gom@webtv.net) Story type: Ghost Location: New Jersey Source: Form Submission
The incidents I'm about to relate occured during my adolescence in the 1960's. Throughout my teenage years several other similar encounters occured in other places, none related to the Holt house. Some of these encounters occured in the presence of others, all whom saw and felt the same things I did.
When I was 13 years old I used to babysit a lot for the young families that lived in my housing development. Within the development was a farmhouse that had belonged to the original owners of the land on which the development was built. No one was sure of the age of the farm house but it may have been built during the 1700's. The doorways and ceilings were lower than what we are accustomed to today. The beams and studs were joined together with wood pegs rather than nails.
It was my habit before going to bed at night to sit by my bedroom window and look for constellations in the night sky. One late night as I was sitting at my window, I saw what appeared to be a ball of mist about 2 feet in diameter, "walking" in the middle of the street. I thought at the time that it must be fog or gas although it was a clear night and there was nothing random in it's movements. It seemed to know where it was going. It followed the road until it came to the corner where it made a left and followed a path into the woods where it floated in until I could see it no more. I thought it very strange at the time but forgot about it for a long time.
One day my foster sister told me that the present owners of the old farmhouse wanted me to babysit their 4 year old daughter that Saturday night. I accepted the job.
When I arrived at the house their Doberman went crazy, barking at me and growling. I like animals and they usually like me. I tried to calm the dog and reassure it, even petting it, but the frenzied barking never stopped. The owners said they couldn't figure it out since the dog was usually friendly. They put it down in the garage and the barking stopped.
The 4 year old girl was already asleep in her upstairs bedroom when I arrived, her bedclothes tucked in. I went to the livingroom and turned on the T.V.. Everything was fine until about 1am or so. At first the T.V. picture became "snowy" until it was unwatchable. I shut the set off and proceeded to read when the lamp started to dim. I had to turn on a couple of other lights to have enough light to read by. Despite it being mid-summer and a warm night at that, the room started to become cold. There was no air-conditioner and the windows were closed. I went to the windows and the glass was warm as though the air outside was still warm. The houses across the street looked odd, as though I was looking at them through a thin gauze and very far away. I tried to open the windows but none would budge.
Then the noises started. At first it was a soft footstep repeatedly descending the stairway about 4 or 5 steps down, descending but never ascending. I went upstairs and checked the child. She was sound asleep, still tucked in securely. Well, I thought I guess it's just this creaky old house. The footsteps continued, getting louder and more insistant, descending lower on the staircase but never ascending. I checked the child but she was still fast asleep. I thought that possibly a squirrel or other small animal was loose in the house. While on the top landing I stood and listened and looked but could not detect any animal.
While back down in the livingroom, the footsteps became a pounding, this time descending all the way down the steps. I went to the staircase to watch, there was nothing, the child still asleep despite the noise. I was apprehensive but believed that there must be some logical explanation for this. Then a loud crash was heard from the small storage room that was directly across from the top of the landing. It sounded like an empty metal wastebasket had been flung against the wall. It had a hollow, echo-like sound. I raced up the stairs to that little room and turned on the light. The room was very cold, the window closed, the light dim. The room appeared to be enveloped in mist. I recoiled back from the cold and peered into the room; nothing seemed remiss, nothing was upset. I went to the child's room. She was still fast asleep, covers tucked in, almost as though she'd been knocked-out cold. She hadn't changed her position all night. Her skin was warm so I figured she was alright. She never stirr
I returned to the living room shaken. When I'd entered that little storeroom a feeling of electricity flowed up my spine to the back of my head; the little hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Then the footsteps came down the stairs on to the foyer rug. This was a shag rug and I could see imprints of something pacing back and forth on the rug. I stepped into the middle of the rug to get a better look at what it was. Then something passed over me; I felt the air being cut-off, I lost my balance and felt like I was going to pass-out.
Now I knew that it was no "little animal". The footsteps went back the same way they'd come down, the footfalls growing fainter, going back up the staircase until they disappeared. By this time it was about 3am. Warmth returned to the room; the lights regained their former brightness and the T.V. worked again.
The couple returned about 4am and asked me if everything had been alright. Not really knowing what to say and not wanting them to think me downright crazy, I told them everything had been alright.
The next day I told my foster sister what had happened. She told me that she didn't want to alarm me, but the former owners had told her the house was haunted by a Mr. Holt, one of the original owners of the house. My sister told me that they'd given her a tour of the cellar where there were many small cubicles with manacles for hands and feet imbedded in the walls. No fruit cellar that! My sister and I surmised that there may have been slaves down there at one time. Whoever they were, something terrible must have happened to those poor souls down there. We wondered if Mr. Holt had been responsible for any of it and if he didn't have some help with his "suicide".
It was this encounter that commenced a series of other similar experiences during my adolescence. Since that time nothing I've encountered has equaled the intensity or vividness of those first encounters. I've never used a oujia board and don't think I ever will. What I've encountered since has left me only with vague feelings of ill-ease or a feeling of being watched. The last one was about a year ago on Spring Street in New York City. There is supposedly a spirit of a woman who drowned herself many years ago in the spring which now flows under the street. I wasn't thinking of her when I entered the Aveeda store there but I definitely felt a presence as I entered the store. Who knows?
I'd appreciate hearing from anyone with knowledge about this phenomena who can explain why these things happen to some and not to others. You can e-mail me at gom@webtv.net.