Halloween Nightmares: The Mystery at Alamo Square Part I

“I am not crazy!” she yelled at the top of her lungs as they check her into the Asylum. “I was framed! I AM NOT CRAZY!” This was the scene I witnessed when they took my best friend in, I didn’t see it coming nor did her family, EVERYONE was in shock.

… well let me tell you the story from the beginning ….

It all started a few months back, when my best friend Enith moved out of her house and began to rent a room in an old Victorian style home in San Francisco. This house was about a 15 minute bus ride from her summer job. Enith was not there alone, the old woman who was renting out the room was living there too. Enith never met the lady even after she moved into the house. Enith found a list of rules posted on the fridge, there was only one rule on that list and it was to NEVER enter the old woman’s room. Whenever Enith walked passed the room, there was an awful smell, she could not put her finger on what it might be. There was also an odd light coming from under the door, as though the TV was ALWAYS changing channels, and there were odd voices that came from the room from time to time. Enith just minded her own business, she did what she had to do and she paid her rent.

One night, Enith came home from work, she heard voices coming from the room so she tried to make her presence known by yelling, “I am home!” it was followed by a cold, awkward silence. Not knowing what to do next, Enith hastily retreated to her room, and was sure to lock the door behind her. There were two voices, a man’s and a woman’s. It sounded as though they were arguing about something BIG, but it was in a different language so Enith didn’t know what was going on.

The next morning Enith went down to the kitchen to see what she could make for breakfast. She was sure that the old woman would not mind if she used some of her food, she had just moved there and didn’t have time to buy food. When she began to look around for food, she noticed that almost everything had gone bad, the milk went bad about 2 months ago.

When Enith left work, she went to the store that was on the corner of the block. There was a very kind guy that was working there who asked her if she was new to the neighborhood. Enith of course was not too kind, as it was really late, and did not know who this guy was. The guy was quick to realize that he had step over some sort of boundary and quickly introduced himself.

“Sorry, It’s Andrew, my friends call me Drew. My family owns this corner store, and I know all of the neighbors. I didn’t recognize you…. just being friendly.”

“Drew, where might I find some biscuits? It’s Enith, by the way.”

Once Enith got what she needed she headed back to the house it was really late and she was starving. As she approached it she saw a shadowy figure looking out of the window. She rushed in to see who was there, perhaps it was the old woman she was renting from. Once she got into the house there was not a single soul in sight, but she just knew that someone was there. Enith got this eerie feeling over her as though she was being watched, the walls seem to have eyes. She spoke, “Hello! Anyone home?!” but there was no response.

To Be Continued ...

Halloween Nightmares: The Haunting of 3318 Part IV

The summer was transitioning into fall and school was now in session. By the end of the day I was relieved to go home. I could smell mom's special rosemary bread from a mile away. I finally reach home and she greets me from the kitchen, "How was school?"

"Good, how was your day, mom?"

She was silent for a moment and then replied, "I saw her again... the little girl." I looked at her and I could see she was deeply concerned. She grabbed me hands tightly.  "I need you to come with me." It was almost as if she was imploring me.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"To a friend's house, we have to go find out once and for all what these ghosts want with us... hurry!" We hurried to the car and she quickly put it in gear, nearly forgetting to put on her seatbelt. The whole ride there my mother was humming to herself nervously.

We arrived at an old dirty maroon house. The front lawn was filled with shrubbery and the bushes had cobwebs stretching from one bush to the next. The stairs that led to the front porch of the house were less than safe, I could see through the holes into the crawl space underneath the house. I looked at my mother and I said "What are we doing here?"

She responded, "We are here to get answers."

Someone from inside the house yelled, "Well you're not gonna answers just standing there, come in!"

I jumped in place and my heart felt like it sunk to my feet. Quickly mother and I walked towards the door and said "I'm looking for Madam Huila"

I heard the person in the house slowly walking towards us. "And how can I help you?"

I poked my head into the door to take a peek and see who this Huila person was. As she stepped into the light, she looked at me and said "I'm sure you've seen scarier things than me."

I looked away as quickly as possible and felt embarrassed by the fact that she caught me ogling her. My cheeks flushed red and I didn’t know what to do so I looked down at my feet and begin to tap my foot against the steps. With the constant nervous tapping of my shoe against the beat down steps, my mother finally broke the awkward silence. "I was referred by a friend of mine. She told me that you might be able to help me find some answers." My mother reached out to pull me in closer to stop my nervous childish tick.

As mother pulled me, I fixated my attention on this Huila character while my mother continued to converse with her. Madam Huila’s hair was long, gray and frizzy, her left eye was blue. Her skin was tired and thick. She wore a long puffy skirt stitched together with odd patterned rags. She had an old, worn out grey shawl with green detailing, it covered her head and draped over her shoulders. She was short and paunchy. As she looked at my mother and me, her blue eye sent an ice cold chill down my spine.

“Yes, I may be able to help.” She pivoted and leaned toward us far enough that I could smell the overpowering scent of vick’s vapor rub and medicinal leaves. “Please come in, make yourselves at home.“ said Madam Huila.

Mother and I hesitantly made our way to a room behind beaded curtains. The room was dim and stuffy, the air was smoky. As I glanced around the room I noticed there were framed pictures with priceless trinkets and lit candles around them. There were too many, I couldn’t count them. I wasn’t sure what the meaning of all this was but I had a gut feeling that we were in fact at a witches home. Mother and I walked toward the table. It was the center point of the room. Over it, laid a purple table cloth upon which more candles were burning. We all took a seat and she began by muttering a phrase in a tongue I didn’t understand. She set an an old wooden box on the table which contained a deck of strange cards.

“What is the numeric address of the house you and your family are living in?” She said in an eerie voice.

“...3318…” Mother responded.

She took an inkwell and a pen out of this box and a sheet of paper. She opened the inkwell dipped the pen in and began to write down the numbers ‘3318’ I leaned in to look closer and the ink was deep blood red… the smell of iron began to swim in the air... It was blood. She proceeded to write down an arithmetic and paused. Then she looked up at me and said “How many members in the family, deary?”

My voice cracked, “...Five.” She started to scribble circles over the math.

“Ahh there.”

She folded the paper five times and swiftly ran it over the open flame of the closest candle creating black smoke over the page. Then she opened it, handed mother the deck of cards and told her to cut it. She took the cards laid a few out and said “Those ghost you claim to see are not there to hurt you. In fact they want to protect you, they are friendly, even playful.”

I looked at mother, she had a weird look in her eyes. “What do I do? I want them to leave me and my family alone.”

Madam Huila said, “You have to be vocal with them, announce it loud and clear that you don’t want them to bother you all.” She flipped one more card over “Hmm …” Madam Huila had a concerned look on her face.

“What is it?” said mother, eagerly.

“You and your family are in danger. Not yet but soon.”

I was frozen with shock and worry.

“What?!” Exclaimed mother.

“I am foreseeing a tragedy in your home. You have about a year. Leave the house before then.”

TO BE CONTINUED…

Halloween Nightmares: The Haunting of 3318 Part III

It was the middle of the night and everyone was sound asleep, except my mother. Something bumped her feet violently. She found herself laying on the floor in the middle of the bedroom. Dazed and confused she looked up and said "If you're going to use the bathroom then go." When her eyes adjusted to the darkened room, she realized she wasn't speaking to any of the members of our family. She stood frozen looking at a chubby pale skinned little girl in a white night gown who was looking back at her. The little girl's hair was curly and her eyes were as ice blue as the Arctic oceans. My mother couldn't formulate words no matter how hard she tried. In shock, she frantically reached for her rosary that she keeps under her pillow. The little girl started walking towards my mother, not once taking her ice cold blue eyes away from my mother. Mother’s hands tightly grasped the rosary trembling and drenched in sweat as she struggled for air while reciting a Hail Mary. The little girl stood over my mother as she stared into her soul. Frightened and helpless, she finished reciting the final verse... the girl stepped back and vanished into the dark nothingness behind her.

That next morning, everyone sat around the table eating their food and making small talk. The window in the dining room was opened.There were heavy, dark clouds in the sky and the wind ferociously tossed up the dry autumn leaves across the gravel.

"Honey, could you pass the salt?" I noticed mother was lost in thought.

"Mom... the salt?" I waved my hand in front of her to snap her back into reality but she stared at the wall. She had not even touched her food. I glanced back at my father and he looked back at her.

"Is everything okay?" He asked. There was a long pause in the midst of forks and knives clashing against the plates. I couldn't read if she was tired, or sick but I suspected something was wrong.

"There was a little girl..." she said in a drowned out tone. We all looked at her puzzled.

"What?" said father.

"There was a little girl in the bedroom last night." She responded.

Dad sighed in disbelief and said, "You were probably dreaming." He had a similar response when I mentioned the tall man in the corridor.

My mother slammed her hands on the table, "It's true! I am not making this up, both of us have seen some weird shit in this house! How do you explain the fact that both your daughter and I saw the same dog? How do you explain the television turning on by itself!? And what about the radio changing frequencies on its own?!?" She was furious at my father's disbelief but I could tell she was also terrified.

Father abruptly shot up from his seat and tossed his napkin over his half eaten plate. "I'll be watching television, when you two decide to stop with this haunting bullshit, you're welcome to join me." He stormed out of the dining room and marched into the corridor to the family room.

I was helping my mother wash the dishes as she put the rest of them away. "I believe you mom." She walked over and kissed my forehead, "I know you do, sweetie."

We turned on the radio to ease the tension. The song was a Spanish cumbia by famously known Selena Quintanilla. My mother and I started to dance, and for a moment everything felt normal. Everything felt okay. When out of nowhere the radio changed frequency to an English radio segment about WWII. My mother went over to fix it and moments later it changed back. She got upset and yelled "I don't understand English, put it back!" and then the frequency changed back to the Spanish station but the song was over so mom turned it off completely. We could hear my dad cracking up in the living room. As we finished cleaning up the kitchen and making sure everything was nicely put away we went into the living room to see what dad was having a laugh about. We sat down for a couple minutes then the TV screen switched to white noise and got so loud we had to plug our ears. After a few minutes of white noise, the screen went completely BLACK and there was dead silence. All of a sudden we all heard a loud sound in the kitchen of dishes breaking and pots and pans tumbling on the floor continuously. We rushed to the kitchen expecting to have to pick up broken glass yet oddly enough, there was nothing on the floor. All of the dishes were stacked just how we left them. We were all surprised to see that everything was intact. I looked at my father and he had a very puzzled look on his face, all he managed to say was,

"What in God’s name…?" He quickly looked at my mother and she had a stern expression on her face. “Do you believe us now…?”

TO BE CONTINUED...

Halloween Nightmares: The Haunting of 3318 Part II

It’s been a few weeks since we spoke about the ghost that I saw at the end of the corridor. I didn’t want to keep bringing it up because no one believed me. However, I could still remember him clearly like it was yesterday. Since I didn’t see anything weird after that, even I started to believe that it was just an illusion and I wanted to convince myself that there is no such thing as ghosts. Yet I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something unsettling about the house. Every creak in the walls, every dark corner, every little sound, instilled a great phobia within every inch of my body, making me weak. I only wondered what might happen next. Will I see the man again? Or will I see something even more fearsome? I didn’t want to see it, yet I knew it was coming, it was only a matter of time.  

Again, another night came and I was unable to sleep. My feet were sweating and I couldn’t stand the heat in my room, it was unbearable. I grabbed my blankets out of frustration and tossed them to the floor. Finally, I was able to calm down and I shut my eyes and attempted to sleep. I began to slowly drift into subconsciousness and it was a sweet feeling. I felt a cool breeze from my opened window caress my exposed skin, it felt refreshing and I couldn’t have felt more relieved. Just when I was beginning to drift into the first phase of sleep, the urge to urinate completely destroyed the blissful moment I was in. I got out of bed and carefully made my way to the bathroom. The floor was extremely cold and the bathroom was lit from the radiant moon light that slithered through the window over the bathtub. Despite the fact that the floor was cold, the air was humid and hot. I flushed the toilet and turned the sink dial to wash my hands. I splashed the heat quenching water on my face and reached for the towel. My eyes were shut and my face was buried into the towel but I could sense there was something watching me. When I looked up the hind legs of a Labrador were passing through the bathroom wall into the corridor. I don’t have a dog… I blinked over and over again thinking I was hallucinating. Quickly I made it to my room shut the door and hopped into bed and hid under the covers. I was afraid to look out, I was terrified and I knew that if I pull the covers off I was going to see something that I didn’t want to see. The next morning I went to get breakfast but this time I decided to keep this from my parents because I knew, yet again, they would not believe me.  

It wasn’t Until the day after when my mom came to me and whispered in my ear “Did you see it too?” At first I wasn’t sure what she was talking about. “You saw it too didn’t you? The dog in the corridor. It went into your room and then the bathroom.” I didn’t know what to say so I kept quiet but my hands started to sweat and I began to breathe heavily. She grasped me by the shoulders and stared into my eyes. She knew. I knew she knew as well. Now I wasn’t the only one who saw ghosts.

To Be Continued…  

Halloween Nightmares: The Haunting of 3318 Part I

I was about 14 years old. I woke up in the dead of the night confused and dazed. I couldn't figure out why I woke up, there was no panic so it wasn't a nightmare that awoke me. The first thing I did was to check if everyone else was asleep, everything was silent, unusually silent. My mom and dad weren't even snoring. As I made my way into the living room from my bedroom, I felt the air as cold as when you open the refrigerator door and stand in front of it for too long. I made my way to the couch and sat down in the pitch dark living room. I couldn't tell what time it was but I knew it was too late to be awake. I kept sitting there and figured that eventually I would get sleepy and head back into the room. My pupils began to adjust and then I felt a cold shiver down my spine when I noticed from my peripheral vision, something was down the hall. I didn't want to look up until I was sure that my eyes weren't playing tricks on me. When I turned to look down the corridor, I saw it, vivid and clear. A tall figure of a husky old man in a white uniform. (I'm not sure what type of uniform it was but it looked like a captain's suit) He was looking straight at me and I kept staring back. I tried to blink him away out of fear but my eyes were in shock and wouldn’t respond. The sight of him set a heavy weight in my chest I nearly could not breathe. I didn't know whether to scream for my parents or run to my room and pretend nothing happened. My mind was racing and wondering; What is this man was doing in MY house?! Was he trying to rob us? Was he going to attack me? What if he was trying to hurt my family? I couldn't take my eyes off of the mysterious figure. I studied him as much as I could and I noticed everything was intact except his feet were unaccounted for. Below the knees, all I could perceive where the torn seams where his shins were supposed to be. It was then that I realized that this figure before me was a ghost. He was still staring at me and I couldn't believe my eyes. I was completely immobile. My heart began to pound faster and louder, I thought it would burst right out of my chest. After what felt like a 5 hour staring contest with this ghostly man, he turned back to face the door at the end of that dark corridor. He then reached for the door knob and right before my eyes, he dissolved into thin air.

The next morning I told my mom about the whole thing at the table during breakfast. My dad was quiet and ate his toast with a blank expression on his face, as though he wanted me to stop talking. He didn't look at me at all when I told them what I saw. He simply said, "You might have just been seeing things and it was dark, it was probably all in your head, if anything you might have just been dreaming, or sleepwalking." I began to cry because he didn't believe me I ran to my room and locked the door behind me. I could hear both of them arguing in the kitchen. I leaned into the door to try and hear what else they were saying and I overheard my dad yell “She’s just making things up to get attention, there’s no such thing as ghosts!”

A few weeks later my mom saw something that would prove my dad wrong; a little girl …

TO BE CONTINUED ...

Halloween Nightmares

For the month of October we, The Undercover Philosophers, have decided to share our Halloween stories with you all. Some stories will be fictional while others will be drawn from our real life experiences. So please sit back and enjoy our stories, pop some popcorn and have a drink or two. :)

We hope you all will enjoy what we have brewed up in our little black cauldron.

I Miss You Grandpa

Have you ever taken the time to listen to the elderly about their lives? Could you imagine all of the things that they have seen in their time living on this planet? It's sad to see that younger generations aren't more respectful to the elders. Just the other day, as I was making my way out of church and I was ready to hit the road to grab a bite to eat. I found that people ahead of me were walking slowly. I didn't mind it but I did notice the significant change of pace. I was curious to see what the hold up was when I noticed other people were jumping over the railings to bail out of the slow moving cluster of people. I looked ahead as far as I could, there was an older man whose body was tired and rigid, yet still strong enough to support who I assumed to be his wife. She was short, slow and used a walker for she was incapable of walking without assistance. I took compassion of the old couple and found myself growing less anxious to move past them. Instead I conformed to their pace, in part because it would have been completely rude to pass them up since the walkway was quite narrow and would require me to squeeze past them. In the meantime I began to think to myself, "I wonder how old they were, how long they have been together, and if they knew they were holding up the line, or if they even cared." I don’t get to interact with older folks very often, so this was interesting to experience. The fact that I made the choice to slow down to their pace rather than hurry past them was a perspective changer. While most people thought that waiting was a waste of time, the slowing down gave me the opportunity to appreciate my surroundings. I have been attending this church for 6 years and I have never even noticed the beautiful rose bush at the entrance of the building. If it weren’t for the elderly couple slowing down the crowd, I might not have noticed the gorgeous shrubbery.

Young people don't realize that patience is a virtue. Everything has become so fast paced and advanced, that we have grown accustomed to getting everything in a matter of minutes or seconds which has made our patience grow thin. Take the people at the church who decided to jump the railing, they did not take the time to appreciate the moment and did not think about how the elderly couple felt. Their act of impatience was purely rude, and they can never take back what they did. Respect your elders, they came before you and deserve to be celebrated and honored.Teaching our youth to respect the elderly will set the expectations for future generations. A lot of youngsters these days can be so rude and their disregard for their elders is utterly disgusting. Everyone deserves the same respect regardless of age, race, sex, and gender. We are all human and have been fortunate enough to walk the earth, we should honor that and keep that in mind always. We are only here momentarily, sooner or later we will all depart this cruel world. Growing old is a privilege, not many people get to grow old. Studies have shown that old people are growing rapidly extinct, let’s enjoy them while we can.

My grandfather passed away about a year and a half ago. He was a great musician and played in a band with his sons and his grandchildren. In his younger days he was a busy man. He played in different places around Mexico and taught music to a number of people, some of whom became famous and are still very successful today. My grandfather built a legacy for our family, and it has carried down through the generations. I wish I could have spent more time with him to get to learn more about his life and his travels around Mexico and the US as a musician. As someone who wishes they could have had more opportunities to learn more about their grandfather, I encourage you to be patient with your elders and elders in general. Fortunately I still have my grandmother, however, I don't have the privilege to be with her every day. If I'm lucky, I get to see her at least every OTHER year. My grandma-ma is the only living link I have to my ancestors and I will cherish every moment with her and not take it for granted. Take the time to get to know the elders in your life, they will not always be here. Learn all that you can from your antecedents and cultivate the relationship as much as possible so that when they are gone, you won’t be stuck with the feeling of utter regret and sorrow. When they are gone, they are GONE. There is no turning back the clock because time waits for no one.

Remember this, treat others how you want to be treated. Even though older people are slow to walk, hard of hearing, and some smell funny, they are still people who live, breathe and matter. Anyone who has an impact in our lives will take a piece of us with them when they are gone. When it comes to our grandparents that bond is stronger, because without THEM, WE would not be here. In order to move forward in life it is important to know where you come from. So take the time to learn what you can from them … treasure it, not everyone has that opportunity.

LIVE, LOVE, LAUGH