Whispery Folk
It was March, 1987,and I had four solid stories that I would put in my Senior Thesis[The Blue Robe, Apache Fathers, Cucui, and Headless Soldier (fourstories coming soooooon!)]. One Saturday afternoon, I waspunching away at my little Type-a-Graph when my sister Liza cameinto the room and said that her friend Lizette had a little ghostin her house. I asked her more about it and she said that Lizettehad had an imaginary friend when she was little named Monchi, ahalf-boy half-mouse creature that hummed her songs from beneathher bed. Monchi never scared her but her brother Jeremy, fouryears old at the time, swears to this day that Monchi appeared tohim and tried to strangle him. After speaking with Lizette for awhile, I called her big brother Andy, who's a friend of mine andwas going to school with me, and asked if I could come over tohis house. I went over to his house, a newly remodeled ranchhouse in a neighorhood in Douglas known as the Apple Whitedistrict which was built over an old apple orchard (several appletrees still grow along the streets). I remembered an old storyabout the Apple White district from my aunt who said that about ahundred Mexican soldiers were buried in the Apple White areafollowing battles during the Mexican civil war of the 1840s.Later, I checked this with two books and a local historian (and,thanks to me, ghost enthusiast) and all three did not mention itor have heard of a mass grave in this area.
Anyway, so I arrive at Andy Hernandez's house and we head intohis room and chat away and BS for about an hour or so. In fact, Ialmost forget why I'm there! So Jeremy comes into the room andthrows a football at me. In an instant, I remember Monchi. I askJer about it and he freaks out! I explain to him that Lizette hadmentioned it earlier and calms down. And so Andy and Jeremy sitdown and tell me about all the bizzare goings on they experiencedin 1978, the year they moved into the house. Andy was 8, Lizettewas 7, and Jer was 4. In the beginning, the events had seemed tocenter around the two boys and the parents scoffed at stories ofa man standing outside their window and to voices coming from theceiling. Andy remembers one night waking up to a shadow figurefloating a few feet above him. The figures swirled like liquid inthe air and a murmuring in Spanish was heard at his ear. He shuthis eyes immediately and the figues vanished. Jer remembers oneday a man in a tan suit and shiny shoes tried to take him by thehand and take him down a hole in the wall. After several monthsof this, the two refused to sleep in the house and spent nightsat grandparents' homes. Andy remembers his Dad scolding him forlying about the activities and how he eventually became reluctantto tell his parents about seeing "whispery" (his words)people sometimes in white, sometimes in black, walking around inhis room and in the backyard.
Andy's Mom and Dad, who have been overhearing us talk about thehappenings, come into the room and ask why I'm so curious aboutghosts. I explain my Senior paper and we chat aboutparapsychology and such for a while. They invite me to stay fordinner and after we ate, we sat around the table and I was toldmore of the story. So Albert and Elsa (Dad and Mom Hernandez)tell me that they temporarily fixed the problem by moving Lizetteinto the boys' room and move the boys into her room. Lizettenever experiences anything in the house (other than Monchi, a not-so-imaginaryfriend, I suppose). Jer experiences awful nightmares andeventually sleeps with the parents. Suddenly, just as we werefinishing dessert, Albert admits that saw things in the houseduring the first few months of living there. He would usuallywake up at four in the morning for his early morning shift (he'sa cop, worked with my grandpa) and have some coffee and wait forthe paper. Almost every morning, he would see and/or feel apresence watching him. One morning, he swears he saw a figureemerge from the boys' room carrying one of the boys. He ran tothe room, turned on the lights, and saw the two boys sound asleep(Andy faintly remembers this). Another day, Albert drew his gunat what he first believed was a burglar trying to jump out thefront living room window. He remembers trying to grab the figurebut recalls it vanishing in an instant. Yet another morning, herecalls someone giggling behind him. He turned around expectingto see his wife but instead caught a faint glimpse of the classicimage of a woman in white. I asked him if the image was "whispery"like a foggy image or like spider webs or torn shards of silk. Hesaid that was a fair description of the figure he saw. A fewweeks later, Albert upon hearing Jer's nightmares about Monchiand about the "man in the wall" decided that the houseshould be blessed. A Sunday later, the house was blessed andnothing was ever seen again.
What was particularly odd about this haunting was the suddenessof its halt and the fact that no women viewed or experienced anyof the phenomena that the males did. No aunts, grandmas, or otherfemales ever felt any presence or odd sensations. At first Isuspected a "succubus" or strong female spirit hauntedthe home. But what was the deal with Monchi and "the man inthe wall"? I aked the guys if they ever experienced anythingsexual aobut the occurences. They laughed at me at first but thenAlbert recalls that the times that he felt was being watchedtruly intimidated him (imagine a 6'5", 250 lb, veteran copbeing scared of being looked at!) and he felt as if he was indanger. Nothing has being seen or heard in the house since 1979when Andy woke up to a grinning phantom telling him his brotheris dead. Today, Andy says that it might have been a dream, but hereally cannot say for sure.
Well, that was fun.
Cheers,
Gabe