ghost stories

A Ghost Story
by: Greg Belcher

We have all heard "ghost stories" as children.
Tales that a parent or other relative would tell to us from days long forgotten. With young innocent minds, our hearts would race in the dark hours of the night as we thought about the stories.
Having grown older and maybe wiser I can look back on those scary hours with humorous recollections.

My dad has told me many times a story his mom had told him. My grandmother was placed in an orphanage in Charleston, West Virginia following the death of her mother. Sometime later she was taken to a new home to live with foster parents.
It was the home of Dr. George Dickensen and his wife Essie that my grandmother was welcomed into.

My grandmother referred to her foster dad as "Pops". Being a Doctor, He frequently moved to different locations to live. It was during my Grandmother's teen years that they moved into a new home, near Jackson County, West Virginia. They soon discovered that this house , though normal in appearance, was far from normal. After they had settled in, my grandmother and her "mom" decided to inspect the attic.
The homes at this time would have had a door with a latch on it, at the bottom of the stairway leading up to the attic. Upon reaching the attic, the pair discovered an old trunk setting up on one end. They laid the trunk down and opened it. Since they didn't discover any forgotten treasures in the old trunk, it was soon forgotten. The next morning, Grandmother and her mom were at home by themselves. They heard a loud noise upstairs in the attic like the trunk had fallen over. It was immediately followed by another sound as though someone had pushed the trunk down the stairway. Both of them ran to the door at the bottom of the stairs and saw the trunk and opened it. There was nothing there. They proceeded up stairs ( probably with the hairs standing up on their necks) and found the trunk just as they had left it the day before.

When "pops" came home, he refused to believe that it was anything but a logical answer to the noise.
My grandmother and her mom would hear the same noise for the next couple of days, but he was always out when it happened.
However, It happened one morning when he was at home. Once again they heard the loud thump as if the trunk turned over. Followed by the thump thump of it crashing down the stairs. "Pops" hurried to the door at the stairway and told them to "watch this" and just as the noise came to a stop he unlatched the door . The door "flung" open by an unseen force.
Needless to say, they didn't remain to much longer in their new home.

My grandmother would often say she wasn't superstitious, but I am sure this was a place and time she never forgot.
There are many unexplained things in our world. Some events simply leave one wondering if what they had just witnessed or felt was real or a shadow of their imaginations.