This is the first in a series of true stories as told to me by persons I know and trust. The stories were modified slightly to make them more interesting but the basic facts are as told. All of the facts were verified as much as possible.The names and identities were changed for reasons of privacy.
In Alameda, there is a small Victorian House located on a corner in an old established neighborhood. My niece had started a new job in the bay area and needed a place to stay. She found two other female co-works who were willing to room with her and rented the old house. The location was good, the rent was reasonable. Within a week of finding it, they had moved in.
We all know that old houses make many noises so when this one creaked and groaned none of the girls gave it a second thought. Small unusual things kept occurring, but no one was thinking about paranormal things, and none of the girls paid much attention. A few times the girls joked around and talked about the ghost but that is all it was, talk. None of them believed there was really a ghost.
One night, my niece and one of the roommates were at home. The third girl was working out of town. After a quiet evening, the girls went to their separate bedrooms. The rooms were located just down the hall from each other so all the girls felt safe sleeping alone. Sometime around 3:00 AM, my niece started dreaming.
In her dream, she was walking up to the house. She noticed there was an old woman standing out front. The woman didn’t say anything but smiled as my niece approached. My niece noticed that the woman appeared to be blind. Her eyes were dead and fixed somewhere above and behind my niece. My niece asked the woman “Is it alright if I come in?” The woman smiled and gestured with her hand towards the front door.
My niece suddenly woke up with a start and the dream still vivid in her mind. She lay back down and stared into the darkness contemplating the strange dream she had just experienced. Within seconds, she heard a blood-curdling scream coming from her roommate’s room, then quiet. Paralyzed with fear my niece waited for what seemed like hours and finally managed to squeak out, “Stacy? Are you OK?” Just as hesitantly Stacy answered, “I think so…” “Stacy, do you want to come in here with me?”
In a flash, Stacy came running in and jumped in the bed, immediately pulling the covers up to her neck. “What happened?” Stacy was shaking and it took her several minutes to calm down. Finally she spoke. “I’m not sure!” She began to recount what led up to her screaming. I was having a dream that an old woman was standing at the end of my bed. She grabbed my covers and pulling them off the bed. She was very angry and telling me to get out of her house. Suddenly I woke up to see my covers hovering above my bed about four feet. That is when I screamed. When I did, they dropped to the bed again.
My niece now had the look of terror on her face as she asked, “What did she look like?” “I don’t know, just an old woman” “Describer her to me.” Stacy though for a moment and said, “She had kind of frizzy curly hair down to her shoulders.” “She was wearing a light colored nightgown” The similarities were just too bizarre to ignore. My niece and Stacy spent the rest of the night sleeping in the same bed until morning. Once the sun was up, they sat and compared notes about the mysterious old woman that had haunted their previous night’s sleep.
The old woman visited none of the girls again, but she had left an impression on all of them. Ever since that, night there seemed to be more activity in the house. The sound of footsteps was quite common along with closing doors, and scratching on the walls. Probably most disturbing was the feeling of being watched.
The girls decided to do some research on the house and found that it had been moved from a different location in Alameda. It had actually been the servant quarters to a much larger house. There was a story attached to the house that there was a woman that lived in the house who had some kind of disability and relied on someone from the larger house to meet her needs. Eventually she died and the two houses were separated to their present locations.
Was the old woman in the girl’s dreams the same one that lived in the house? Was the disability that caused her to rely on others blindness? It seems that most of that information has faded with history and we may never know for sure. Maybe she was pleased that my niece asked for permission to enter the house while Stacy just assumed that she had a right to be there.
We will never know… in this lifetime.
Copyright 2010, Dave Mace, All rights reserved
