THE FLEETING GREETING

Brackenfell, Cape Town, last night,

Nush slept over at a friend's house last night and when she came back today, she didn't even greet me.....she opened the front door and the first thing she told me was to sit down cause she HAD to tell me this.

At about 30 past midnight last night, the two girls got the munchies and proceeded downstairs to the kitchen. While they were looking for snacks, Nush told her friend she is just going upstairs to blow her nose. She has a bad cold.

See bathroom above.

Nush came up the stairs to the bathroom and as she was about to enter, she heard two distinct knocks on the bathroom door!!! She thought someone was behind the door, so she went in anyway, but as she shut the door, she realized that there was nobody in the bathroom.

She quickly exited the door, closed it behind her. As she did so, her friend's bedroom door shut and the door handle was pressed down to click it shut!!!
Just before it clicked shut, she heard a faint disembodied whisper clearly say :"Goodbye"

She flew downstairs like a rocket, needless to say, shared the story with her friend, who then refused to sleep in her own bedroom.

PISSING PARTNER

Castle of Good Hope,2009
I have told this one before briefly, but it was my latest experience and such a wonderfully obvious haunting, it was awesome. It was at the Good Hope Castle here in Cape Town when we went to see the historic wonder for the first time. In the center is a big courtyard and in one of its 5 corners was a tiny, dark little entrance wherein lie the restrooms. I had a very serious pee and had to find the elusive toilets. I entered the dark doorway and realised that the toilets were not there. What there was, however, was a long-loooooong corridor of old stone from the 17th Century, winding ominously into the bowels of the old fort.

Dark, not just the weak-lighting-dark of the mineshaft style lights lining the sides of it, but a darkness that drifted subliminally through it and whomever might be caught in its snaking maze. The kids decided to "stand guard" at the entrance, as they always do when scared shitless in their cowardly way :-)) I started down the corridor, around one corner, long straight in the soft yellow light that made the stone look orangy and it was as if I was back in 1669, because not a sound from the courtyard or the children at the entrance followed me.



All I heard eventually was the running overflow of the toilets and I was very happy that relief was in sight. Take note, I was not in the least thinking about ghosts. At all. I was in wonder over the age of the building I was in and the way it was built, immune to weather and artillery alike. I reached the end of the tunnel and it flanked to the mens, and ladies restrooms, respectively. The only sound was the hypnotic water running continually.

I found four cubicles and picked the third, as they were all empty. I wanted to make it quick because there were many tourists who were bound to find out where the toilets were and I hate the awkward feeling of coming out of a toilet and confronting an audience who I always imagine are thinking : "We know what you just did." LOL!!

And so I got to leaking and to my dismay, I heard one of the fuckers come into the cubicle next to me. I literally rolled my eyes at being discovered, and rushed to finish and leave before the chick next to me came out of her cubicle. I first wanted to call out to Nush, but realized that if it were her, she would have said HI. I heard the sound of urination and a hearty throat clearing. So I thought I'd not embarrass myself and kept my mouth shut. I finished, flushed and briskly rushed out of my cubicle to wash my hands before she came out.

As I got to the taps, I glanced in the mirror and noticed that the cubicle next to mine was EMPTY!!!! I swung round, thinking the reverse view might be confusing me, but all four stalls were empty. I was alone! I was more puzzled than anything, but as I left the restroom, quite swiftly, I realized that I had just shared a restroom with something supernatural and a tingle ran up my ass, prompting me to quicken pace.



I ran-walked back down the corridor, making damn sure there is nobody else who may have been in there with me, but its a single file corridor that runs uninterrupted to the front entrance and I was alone in there. As I walked away I could hear a soft snickering behind me and I made it to the entrance in record time, hoping the kids were playing a trick on me. But how could they have? They were in the doorway, chatting loudly so that I could hear them well into the corridor. I asked them who else came in or out and they replied that nobody had entered since I did!!!

After I told them why I asked, I dragged them into the corridor with me and sure enough, when we got to the toilets, we distinctly heard a woman clearing her throat. We freaked out and made our way back out, now shamelessly running. According to the plaque there, the corridor was the oldest part of the fortress and was used to store weapons, gunpowder and artillery right after the fort was built in 1666. Go figure. I would love to be locked in there overnight with a camera. Maybe I should invite a few friends from Las Vegas ;-)

My first house and its "other" inhabitant

Heidelberg (yes, again), 1993

After I got knocked up and married to get my parents off my back, I rented a house in Heidelberg, where I had finished school a year before. I would love to have that little house NOW.
It looked like a doll house on the outside, similar to the house I was staying in now, but on the inside it was HUGE!!!

The landlord was a friendly Afrikaner who owned an electrical store next to the house and when we had a look at the place (myself, my husband and my parents), my dad asked what kind of deposit we should pay, etc and the guy said something to the effect of how he knows newly weds need their money and such, and that he does not require a deposit. The house rent was ridiculously cheap, even for a low income person as myself (I was just out of school and at my first job), but I saw it as the old man wanting to help us out.

I loved that house. It had wooden floors, a stoep (porch) and three bedrooms with a kitchen full of beautiful dark brown wooden cupboards. The kitchen was massive. You actually traveled from one side to the other and it had a look-through in the wall. I don't know the proper word for it, but its like a diner window that you can pass food through to the next room?
You know what I mean ;-)

I was 8.5 months pregnant at the time and commuted to Johannesburg daily, an hour's drive there and back. My parents literally FORCED my husband to work (he was a total deadbeat, which is one of the biggest reasons I dumped his ass that very next month) for a security company, because he had not graduated from High School and it was the only job he qualified for.

So I'd leave for work at 6am and come back at 7pm, and my husband, Paul, would leave for his evening shift at 6pm and come back at 5am. So we hardly spent any time together in the house.
One night he was out on duty again and it was raining hard. Now, I love rain and thunder. Baby, I am straight out of the Addams Family, so I love that kind of weather. It was still dusky and I sat on the porch with some tea, admiring the demonic wind and hammering rain. Bliss.
Until I had to go back in the house.

The town was known for power outages, as Gauteng province lies on the Highveld, which has severe electrical storms in the summer. (See why I'd love to have that house again?)
The power went out as I walked through the front door into the living room, which was the size of a soccer field!!! :-)
Waddling uncomfortably through the pitch dark of the living room, listening to my own footfalls, I felt a terrible feeling of alarm. As if there was someone in there with me, following me very very closely. I dared not turn around and now and then, the lightning would briefly illuminate the room and I prayed silently that it would not reveal anything that might make my heart stop.

I felt my way along the walls to my bedroom for a candle and hopefully some safety, and again almost prayed out loud that I would not touch someone against the wall. It felt like an eternity, getting to my bedroom door and just before I got there, I got what I refer to as the "Hellraiser" effect ---- my skin pulled so taut from gooseflesh, that it felt like I had hooks to my face, tugging back so hard that my skin would split!!! Something was trying to keep me from getting past the threshold and at once I felt like I was walking in one place and not getting any closer to my room. My heart was pounding and I felt warm tears well up in my eyes. Tears from sheer terror.
I felt distinctly how someone was breathing behind me and it took all my energy to get through my door, which I immediately closed behind me.

I ran to my bed and as my room did not have a key, I sat in the picth dark of my bedroom, occasionally seeing my shut door in the flashes of light from outside. I knew I had to watch the door, but I did not want to see.
As I sat staring wide-eyed at my door, the fucking thing creaked open and stood ajar for a minute or so, revealing the vast blackness of the living room and I could feel my baby kicking in anguish as I shook from fear. Then it opened a bit more and I kept telling myself it was the stormy wind that came through under the kitchen door that caused it. Who knows.

I knew I had to shut it again, but I could not move. I was paralysed, wishing my parents would come check on me, alone here in the power failure, but no-one came. The air was filled with static, and not just the weather's. Whatever was behind that door, was malicious and I could feel it as clear as crystal. It was watching me and made no secret of it.
On my way to the door, I sang out loud, and moved deliberately slowly, as not to let the thing know that I knew it was there. I acted like a true skeptic.
My voice was drowned by the occasional snaps and crackles from thunder of epic porportions which had me screaming in starts ever now and then. You know when thunder sounds like Aramgeddon and suddenly cracks its demon whip right next to you? Those.

I got close to the door and noticed a milky figure born right in front of my face!! With every inch of power I could muster, I reached out and shut the door hard! Wham!! I could feel the energy through the door. It was PISSED!!! A hot, evil vibe seeped through to me and I jumped back, hiding behind my baby's crib, but I could not hide from the fear as I heard the angry, heavy footsteps pounding the wooden floors rhythmically into the living room. You know, I have had many many encounters, but this was one of m worst nights ever.
I sat crouched on the floor until my husband came home that morning and when I told him, he just laughed and said :"Oh good, I thought I was going crazy" !!!

Sometimes in the kitchen, I would be convinced that Paul was standing in the living room, staring at me throught the window thingy and I would talk to him and then he'd come through the back door and I would realize I was talking to someone else.

One night we sat alone watching TV. It was Paul's TV. An old type, with press-in knobs to switch on and off. You push the button in and it would swicth on --- and then push it in again and when it comes out, it switches off, right? We heard someone clearly walking from our bedroom, pass us and walk staright to the TV, switching it off!!!! We looked at each other in astonishment, but more amused than afraid. Paul got up and switched it on again. He sat down and true as nuts, it walked loudly past us again, and switched the TV off.

Now it was just plain funny. We laughed out loud, telling it that we wanna watch TV and we won't take any shit from anyone. Paul went and switched it on. Then he walked to our bedroom and got some isolation tape and taped the knobby thing IN, to stay ON. He had not even sat down yet, we heard the footsteps to the TV and we were like two kids waiting for someone to ignite our cherry bomb.
"Click"...we scoffed....."click, click", but the knob would not come out, cause it was taped down. It was HILARIOUS!!! Paul laughed out loud, twirled round and flipped it the bird all over, wherever it may have been in the room. It was the funniest thing how we used good old school tape to thwart a haunting.
Sometimes it can be amusing if you can get past the fear.

In Broad Daylight

Heidelberg, Transvaal, 1989


I was 16. It was a Saturday afternoon at our 3 bedroom house in Heidelberg, near Johannesburg and I was in my room, as always, drawing. My Metallica was not too loud, as I needed to concentrate on what I was drawing and in the next room the rugby was starting.

My parents were big rugby fans, like 95% of the country and it was apparently some big match semi-final or something, so the TV was loud in the living room. It was about 2pm on a sunny day and my curtains were wide open so I would have proper light for drawing.

The sun rays fell in thick streaks over my mattresses (I did not have a bed. I was allowed to decorate my own room and I wanted to sleep on the floor) as the match wore on and I could hear my parents cheering in the next room. Occasionally my dad would scream profanities at the ref, which pretty much told me how the match was progressing.

I switched off Metallica to catch a catnap, as the concentration on the drawing's detail was fatiguing me. I walked over to my cupboard to put away the drawing pad and suddenly felt like I had no energy in my entire body. The air in the room felt really heavy and I felt like I was moving under water. But I just thought I might be tired form drawing.

I sat down on my "bed" and sorted my tape collection because I had tapes lying everywhere on my bed. I was still busy reading the names on the labels, when I could have sworn my bed shifted an inch. My whole body went ice cold with adrenaline and I tried really hard to put it out of my mind, but you know sometimes you are so scared that you can pretend to read labels all you like, but your brain keeps saying "There is a fucking ghost in here" :-))

Again, the bed shifted and I heard the next kick-off in the living room. Then, the bed MOVED. It moved so powerfully, that I was almost thrown off and I clutch both sides of the mattress with my hands, my heart exploding in fear.
With all this, all that was going through my mind was how I was being cheated in the rules of the supernatural....I kept thinking how unfair it was that this was happening in broad daylight and how impossible that is supposed to be!!! I knew my room was iffy at best, but this shit is only supposed to happen in the dark, man!!!

My dad screamed at the referee again and my mom laughed heartily, as the bed propelled across the room with me on it, IN THE BRIGHT HAPPINESS OF THE SUNSHINE outside! I was terrified, and hearing my folks in the room right next to me, was just cruel. I tried to scream at the top of my lungs, but not even a whimper came out!!!
My scalp was so taut from goosebumps, that I thought my face was gonna tear in two, the hair on my arms and legs stood on end as if an electric current went through me. Still I screamed in mute panic, trying to stay on the violently shifting bed which moved completely to the other side of the room.
I was right next to the window where the bright sun light was and the irony still confounded me.

My mom suddenly knocked loudly on the door and came in. The bed stopped shaking at once and there I sat, my eyes like saucers in my head, next to the window. She looked at me, quite unfazed at the obvious terror in my face and said : " Oh nice, you moved your bed. I always told you you need more fresh air in your room," pointing at the open window.

I dared not tell her what really happened, because although she is a believer in the paranormal, she always blamed all the weird shit on my music.
"Yes, its that devil music that you listen to" or "Its the metal that makes you hate your drunk father".......you know, eventually you don't bother anymore.
I wonder what HER excuse was when the things that bump, bumped her! She is a Country Music fan.