True Ghost Tales

Blood Walls

Okay, realexperience ghost stories.....

My two best stories come from when I was in college at Vincennes,Indiana ( small town in Vigo County, near Evansville and Paoli,for those of you interested). A quick walk across some bridge (whosename I can't remember ) would take you into Illinois. Well, I wasthe local authority on ghosts and stuff (mostly because everyoneelse knew nothing) and one of my friends wanted me to go to thishouse known as "haunted" in his hometown just insideIllinois. Well, I asked him what was so special about this house,and I got the traditional urban legend ghostly hitchhiker andwailing woman stories as well as the house "Just beingcreepy". (Not much to hang a paranormal hat on. is it?) Butsince he seemed sincerely interested in learning about paranormalresearch, three friends of mine and I went to said haunted house.

Now, I don't know how to explain it, but I've always had a sixth-likesense that told me if there was anything there or not, and whenwe very first saw the house, it didn't go off. It was a singlestory house with two wings off a central core. The grass wasn'tparticulary overgrown, and the house itself looked like it was infairly good condition. (Even though I know better, I still alwaysexpect a haunted house to look dilapidated, skeletal and eerie.)We went in around sundown ( all the better not to get caughttrespassing my dear) and situated ourselves in the living room. Iwent from room to room and explored, not much there. There were afew pieces of furniture, and the classic abandoned housegraffiti, and one painting on the wall. It appered to be an oil,and the subject was an aprrox 19th century portraiture of afemale. (Estimation based on clothing on subject, as well ascrack deterioration of the paint) Thermometers were placed inabout one in every other room, and our start temp was 87 degreesF. All windows were still in good repair, and no noticeabledrafts were detected with a candle test.

We were there probably until two or three, and I was gettingbored because the only real interesting thing that had happenedso far was that my friends had scared themselves witless tellingghost stories. Around 3:30 am or so, I went through and checkedmy themometers again, and in the farthest room it was 86 degreesF, and as I moved closer to the center of the house, the colderit got. The living room was 56 degrees when I got back. At thispoint the friend who had brought me here began baling about thewailing woman story before, and pointed frantically at the wall.In trying to calm him down, I dismissed what he was saying untilone of the other people brought it to my attention. On the wallwas that painting, and from top to bottom, a blood-like substancewas running in rivulets. It never fell to the wall or the floor,though, it was like it ran from the top, and into a deepreservoir at the bottom. I took probably thirty pictures of thephenomena, then took an herb oil bottle and collected a specimen.I took the painting down, turned it over, and popped the canvasand backing out of the frame. There were no devices in the frameor backing and when I laid the canvas down, it was clean and dry.The wall where it had hung was slighly paler, but not much, and Icould dig several centimeters into the drywall with a penknifeand hit no hidden holes, etc.

Against my better judgement, everyone had decided that this wasnot a place they were wanting to be, and they wouldn't let mecarry the paintng back in their car, so all I had to show for itwere some pictures that came back too fuzzy, too exposed or toodark to be of any use, as well as my specimen bottle. I took itback to my dorm, sealed the top off with wax, and froze it.

My sixth sense haunt ping never went off until the temperaturedropped, which was kind of unusual. I've been in a haunted butdormant house before, and the sense still pings, but this one waslike it was hiding. My guess is that the picture was haunted,although that does not explain why other rooms exhibited thechill factor. As a note, I still have that bottle. I unfroze ittwo years later to give it to a medical student who could verifyif it was blood and what kind. He came back saying it was nottypable ( he couldn't find a specific type) and he said it wasconsistent with human menstrual blood. Pretty sick. I searchedbackground, and couldn't find anything odd about the site, andthe painting was gone when I went back recently.

All of this happed in August 1991, and the blood in the bottle isstill liquid. This is the most solid, and the most lusive case Iever worked on. Proof, but really of nothing.