Scary Ghost Stories

Old Woman

In my childhood Ihad many experiences with the supernatural, one of which standsout in my memory the most.

When I was only 8 or 9 years old my family (Mom, Dad & myyounger brother and I) moved to a new house just down from wherewe had lived for several years. Upon entering the house for thefirst time, I can recall a great fear and anxiety about a certainwalk-in closet that separated the two bedrooms in the house.After moving in, I would have nightmares of an old gray hairedwoman (ugly) with very long fingernails coming out of the closetat me. There were times when I wasn't sure if they werenightmares or actual occurrences. I told my brother about themand he said he wasn't scared of the closet and had not had anysuch dreams. When I told my mom, I can recall the she took thenews with an uneasy air about her. She told me not to think aboutit and it would go away..but it never did. It was several yearslater, when I was in high school, and we had long moved from thathouse, that mom told us of an incident that had happened severaltimes in the old house. Monday was "wash" day at ourhouse and mom said that she dreaded it with a passion. Not justbecause of the physical work involved, but because of anotherreason. The way mom had the bathroom set up for wash day was tohave the wringer type washing machine poised next to a bath tubfull of cold water. When she would run the clothes through thewringer the would fall into the tub and mom would then bend overand pull them out to take out to dry. Mom said on severaldifferent occasions she would be bent over the tub and get astrange feeling that someone was watching her. She would look upand see this old gray haired woman with long fingernails standingin the doorway to the bathroom and she would start moving towardsmom with a eerie grimace on her face.

I was determined to find out if anyone else had experienced thesesightings before we moved into the house. I talked with theelderly gentleman who had lived next door to us when we lived inthe spooky house. I asked him if he knew who lived in the housebefore us. I noticed a change in his usual happy go-luckyattitude. He told me with a rather sad tone of voice that hismother-in-law, an elderly lady with gray hair had lived there. Hesaid she had been afflicted with mental problems for some timebefore her death. When I asked how she had died, he replied"She hung herself in the walk-in closet between the twobedrooms."