Redlodge Tales
This is a ratherlengthy account of my house.
Back in 1990 when my husband and I got married, we moved to alittle town in Montana called Red Lodge. This town was foundedway back in the 1850's by immigrant settlers, but the crowindians had lived there way before. The name Red Lodge comes fromwhen the crow were there - the red teepee (or lodge) was whereyou could find the medicine man. When we moved there thepopulation was less than 2,000 and it's the county seat for milesand miles. Anyway - the tales begin:
First we needed to rent a house. We went to Summit Realty andthey took us to this one house. It used to be a duplex, but theywere renting it as one house now. We walked over the threshold,and I immediately knew that this house had a ghostly resident. Myhusband thought I was crazy - always the skeptic (stories of mychildhood experiences will come later). I said you'll find outthat it's true, I know these things. We ended up renting thehouse because it was cheap, available, and allowed dogs.
The first thing I noticed was that the air upstairs was oftenstifling in the heat, and freezing in the cold - abnormally so.Those of you who have experienced such environmants probrablyknow what I'm talking about. And, at times, I felt reallyuncomfortable - like I was shrouded in a misty blanket. My headspace usually went cloudy. At first we had our bedroom upstairs,and I used the extra kitchen as my art studio. I was alwaysafraid to go to bed by myself at night and had to either layawake until my husband came up, or convince him to come up andread. I always felt that someone was watching me. I was always insuch a hurry to get out of there when dressing.
Well, not much activity really happened until we completely shutoff the upstairs for the winter. No sense heating two houses. Sowe moved our bedroom downstairs and used the upstairs for storage.Since this house was a duplex, it has two entrances - one leadingdirectly to the downstairs apartment, and one leading right up astaircase to the second floor. One day I started hearing the doorto the second floor open, someone run up the stairs, then run allthe way across the upstairs of the house. This happened over andover and over. I even went to investigate - but of course I knewthat it wasn't anyone else but our resident ghost - especiallysince that door remained locked! I was all creeped out of courseand felt as it someone was watching me the whole time - and itwas always in the bedroom up there. Even when I was in the showerdownstairs I heard footsteps pacing back and forth right abovethe shower. I told my husband and he thought I was nuts until onenight we were building a fire in the woodstove when it happenedagain. He said, "Did you hear that?" "Hear what?"I replied even though I heard it, too. He described the frontdoor opening, etc. and I lashed out with an emphatic Aha! Fromthen on he believed every word I said.
My husband only heard the door incident, but I repeatedly heardthe footsteps over the shower, the front door incident, and themovement or knocking down of things upstairs. It was as if "he"(and I say he of which I will explain later) was living upstairsjust as if it was still a duplex.
That spring we opened the upstairs again, but didn't move ourbedroom up there. We set it up as the guest quarters instead, anddiscovered that all along we had free cable so we hooked up ourTV and made the adjoining room a second living room.
Then I found out that my good friend from high school lived inGreat Falls, MT with her husband so I invited them down - theystayed for about 1 week. Valerie has always been sensitive aswell and I wanted her opinion. I never told her about anythingbecause I wanted to see what she came up with. As soon as shearrived and set herself up in the guest room upstairs, sheinstantly knew that someone was watching her. She thought nothingof it until one night she came running downstairs all freaked outand refused to go back up there. She left her husband sleepingthere. She proceeded to explain that she had seen a tall shadowon the wall and had sensed that it was a man looking at her. Shesaid she could feel him staring at her while she was gettingready for bed. Then she said she could feel him in bed betweenher husband and herself and he was feeling her face. This is whenshe freaked out and came downstairs. She said she knew it wasn'tgoing to hurt her, but all the same it was a strange feeling. Sheslept on the couch the rest of her stay. Not much else reallyhappened while she was there.
The last incident (before we moved to CA) happened one nightwhile we were upstairs watching TV. It was a warm summer eveningso we had all of the windows open. This house was built at theturn of the century and it has those old fashioned windows thatwere on pully systems, so half of them were broken and you had toprop them open with pieces of wood. There was no breeze blowingand everything seemed to be average (with my husband upstairs, Inever felt as strange as usual, but still felt as if I was alwaysbeing watched). Jim went in to the bathroom and I was stillwatching TV when all of a sudden we heard a loud BOOM as if everywindow fell at once, or as if an M80 blew up right in the TV room!!Jim came running out of the bathroom and we both looked at eachother with puzzlement. We then thought it was a window ot two -but like I said, there was no breeze and upon inspection allwindows were just as they had been. Jim hadn't quite finished sohe went back into the bathroom and I sat down to watch TV.Suddendly I felt "him" come toward me and "he"then touched me across the left side of the face, then down myneck and was gone. I was paralized!! I told Jim what had justhappened and we were both pretty stunned by the whole thing.
A few tidbits on the history of the house: I had mentioned thatit was built at the turn of the century. When you walked in thehouse, because it was turned into a duplex, you could see wherethe old stairs were and where they remodelled and covered upwindows that used to be there. Also, we were told, about 1 monthafter moving in, that a family had lived upstairs. The youngestson was abused so badly that he almost died in the house. Theyrushed him to the hospital where he later died. There were crayonmarks all over the upstairs walls, which was creepy since I knewabout the kid. Now, I don't know about any earlier history, but Idid mention that both my friend and I thought it was male - shethought it was a grown man, I however, couldn't tell.
That's about it for our house. I do have a few questions forthose who make it through the story: 1. Why didn't my dog, whowas a puppy at the time, ever react? 2. Has anyone ever heard aboom like that before? What's the signifigance?