The Ghostly Chronicles: Chapter 12 Hold On to One More Day

Whoever the man was that my aunt had brought to the house unleashed the hell that had been living downstairs.  There were no more subtle hints that something was amiss in the house.  Now it was "in your face activity."  There was no more trying to explain away the unexplainable, trying to convince yourself that it was your imagination getting the best of you.  There was no denying the things that you saw and heard; they happened.

The invited intruder, whoever he was, set the "other family" on a rampage.  Henry, according to the guest, was extremely powerful and evil.  He appeared to have all of the strength for full manifestation, where the child and woman did not.  Maybe he absorbed all of the energy from them to be seen.  They, according to my family, were never crystal clear; they were always foggy looking.  When Henry appeared, he remained dark, large, fully formed, except for legs, black shadow, but his attire was clearly seen.  He seemed to have depth, not 3 dimensional, but almost.

Having read, watched, and heard of ghostly encounters through various forms of media over the years, I would assume that the man brought into the house was likely a medium of some sort.  He was able to communicate in some form with the entities.  And he was able to almost get them to appear at will.  The man told my family that the woman and child were not Henry's family.  He didn't know what the relationship was; he only knew that Henry controlled them.

The rest of the night was chaotic for my family.  The noises were deafening, and they seemed to come from everywhere.  The woman and girl alternated between standing behind Henry and shuffling down the hall to go into my room.  Henry would appear and disappear.  There was no longer the glittery warning before he appeared in full form.  Now he was just there in all of his glory without warning.

The television screen was now covered because images appeared on it, just like the vacuum cleaner incident.  The image on the screen was not what existed in reality.  When my family looked at the TV, they would see strange surroundings and furniture, not what was really there.

My uncle continually checked the tape recorder to make sure that it was working.  He played back a small part of it and was shocked to hear things that were not audible to their ears.  When Henry would show up, there was a very low frequency humming sound; it would be similar to the electronic buzz that a  powerful transformer gives off.  When he would vanish, the noise would be gone as well.  Perhaps that was an indication of the strength of his being.

At approximately 5 a.m., the action stopped completely—dead silence.  The man wanted to check out the basement because the noise level off and on throughout the night was extreme.  And, of course, he wanted everyone to go with him.

The only obvious damage that was done was in the sitting room of what had been my brother's bedroom.  A square piece of the paneling was lying on the floor.  It had been pushed, pulled, or beaten off of the wall.  Some actual groove marks on the banister from where the chain had dug into it as the basement door had been tampered with.  That was it, no more damage.

Before the man left, he wanted to hear the tapes.  Everyone was taken aback by the constant noise of shuffling and opening and closing doors and moving things around upstairs.  It was things that had not been visible or audible to them when it was happening.  The low pitched noise that seemed to envelop Henry was also some form of speech.  There were speech patterns to it, not just a consistent sound, but the low-tech tape recorder didn't have the ability to manipulate the tapes to determine the speech.  They were advised to keep those tapes in a safe place and not tape over them.  They would need more tapes.

The man and my aunt left the house and went their separate ways.  Much of the day was consumed by my family discussing the events of the night before.  They made the wise decision not to stay in the house that night.  They would go to my aunt's house.  They also made the decision that we had to move immediately.

They spent the rest of the day collecting some of their personal effects, guns, personal papers,  and clothing.  They left the house at 5 p.m.  They left every light in the house on before they made their escape.

Once they had arrived at Shirley's house, a game plan was quickly set into motion.  Shirley's husband, the colonel, typed a letter to the homeowners advising them the house was being vacated on an emergency basis.  In the meantime, Shirley had contacted Duke University, the Parapsychology department, and asked if they would or could investigate the house.  They said they would meet with their team and discuss it and call back with the decision.  My family was catching up on some restful and well-deserved sleep.

The decision of Duke University to come out to the house was critical; everyone was hoping that they would.  If my family could get some sort of verification that something was amiss in the house, we might get out of the 2-year lease.  Their decision could make or break us.