Ghost Stories

Halloween Story

On October 1, two years ago I moved into a tiny old house in the country. It had been used in the '50's as housing for the farmhands who worked the local strawberry fields. This house also happens to be very close to a cemetery, some of the gravestones dating back to the 1800's. I lived there with two friends, one of whom had a kitten. I spent a lot of time alone at the house while my friends were at work, and would often glimpse a dark grey shadow hovering near my feet. Now at first I thought it must be the kitten, except for the fact that the shadow hovered two feet in the air! (it was also about a foot and a half long and a foot tall.)

Almost every day I would catch a glimpse and then the shadow would dart away, as if it were......well, shy. I finally mentioned it to my housemate Sierra who exclaimed excitedly, "I've seen that too! Oh my gosh I thought I was the only one!!" We then talked about how it wasn't at all a scary thing, and wondered how it ended up in that house (if it had been there before we moved in). It got to the point where we were always making jokes about it: "Oh, it must have been the GHOST," and teasing our other housemate who didn't want to have anything to do with something she couldn't see.

Fast forward to Halloween Eve. Sierra and I are getting ready to go to a big bash in the mountains; we're in the bathroom, elaborately painting our faces while this delicious homemade applecrisp I'd painstakingly prepared is baking in the oven. I go into the kitchen to remove the tin foil so the top can, you know, crisp. I carefully remove my prize from the oven, set it WAY BACK on top of the stove, remove the tin foil, turn to set it on the counter, and I hear *SPLAT!* Turn incredulously around: the apple crisp is lying FACE DOWN on the floor, nary an inch from the oven. There's NO WAY it could have slid off. Someone/thing flipped it right over, as if to say "F*** YOU!" I have to admit, I was freaked. I called Sierra in from the bathroom, she kept saying, "What? What?" and I couldn't answer, I just stood there in awe, staring at the bottom of the pan. When she finally came in we just exploded into hysterical laughter; it was all so perfect, somehow. Trick or Treat.

"Very funny, little ghost! Trick or treat, huh? Thanks a lot...gee, now what'll we take to the party?"

The funny thing is, we never saw that little ghost again!