My parents were young when I was born and we lived in my the second floor of my grandparent's house. The house, as we were told, was built as an infirmary in 1800's around the time of the civil war. A huge house with too many rooms to count. I wouldn't necessarily call some of them bedrooms as that's not what they were intended for when it was built. All the rooms were somehow connected to each other. There were no hallways. No one really had privacy since we had to walk through some rooms just to get to other rooms or to a bathroom. But every room had a door that could lock from either side.
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In the second floor next to the staircase there was a perculiar blank wall next to one of the rooms that when knocked on sounded hollow and from the outside there was a boarded up window that was painted over next to the bathroom window, but no one knew of any other rooms. There was a basement and even the basement had multiple rooms all connected.
When my grandparents first moved in in the 80's my grandfather and my oldest uncle who was a teenager dug through all the junk left behind by all the previous owners. What they found shocked them. In the back room of the basement, which could only be accessed from outside they found shelves full of jars. In the jars were fetuses. They found corsets and an old wooden wheelchairs. My uncle dug into the ground, and not even a few inches under the surface he found bones, femurs specifically. All the evidence they found was given to the Norlina history museum. For some reason my granddad and my uncle didn't put much thought into the unnerving items they found in their new home.
I myself have found many items while digging around outside as little children do. Nothing unnerving. A stray cannon ball and an old coin here and there. It's not uncommon to find those things here in the south. The funny thing is that my granddad, my uncle and myself have never experienced anything paranormal in that house. Yet we're the only ones who ever actually found relics.
My parents are now divorced but the stories of their encounters always line up. My mother moved in and she quickly became part of the family. The main encounter that both my parents remember well is the mysterious tapping noise. Every night when they would lie in bed it sounded as if someone was tapping on the bed frame which was brass. Tap tap tap tap. As if someone is trying their best to keep them both awake. The tapping was so loud that my aunt, who was in the room next door, often confused the noise as the bedframe banging against the wall. But my parents assured her it wasn't them. Tap tap tap tap. A steady tapping as my parents described it, that only happened some nights. And only to their bed. They eventually just ignored it.
Another encounter is the stereo recorder. My aunt recorded the stereo often while she slept so she could listen to the newest pop hits on cassette. Some days she would listen to the playback and notice the channels changing. And they would change at different speeds; slowly, then fast, and back and forth across all the stations. And of course she'd be oussed because she wasted a recording. My parents assured her that it wasn't them who messed with the knob.
My grandmother had the most encounters out of the family. She was known for calling the cops several times because she thought she heard footsteps upstairs when no one was home. The cops always told her it was possibly just critters on the roof. But she told them everytime she knew what she heard. Solid thuds like heavy footsteps walking throughout the rooms upstairs.
When my mother was pregnant she often wore plain white tshirts around the house. My grandmother said one afternoon she was sitting in the livingroom watching TV. The entertainment center at the time was against the wall across from the door that lead to the staircase and it had glass cabinets that showed the reflection of the staircase. My grandmother said she saw a reflection of a woman walking down the steps in a white gown and thinking it was my mother, invited her to watch TV together. There was no reply so she asked again. No reply. She turned around and noticed no one was walking down the steps. My mother later walked down and stated she had just woken up from a nap and that she hadn't gone downstairs at all earlier.
The most interesting encounter to me is my cousin's. He's 2 years older than me and since he stayed with my grandparents often we got to play all the time before he moved away at age 5. Our grandfather used to tell us both scary stories about the house and we'd both scream at the jumpscares. But we loved it and begged for another story after story. And that was all I thought it was until I visited with my cousin nearly 20 years later and brought up the stories from our childhood. His whole mood had shifted and his body tensed up when I talked about the house. His breath hitched when I asked if he believed in any of the stories. He said one night when he was asleep in my grandparent's bed he woke up for no reason. He said he looked over at the corner of the room and saw an old woman staring at him. He described her to me as very old and frail and wearing a night gown. He was terrified, but he didn't scream as he didn't want to disturb our grandparents so he just hid under the covers until he fell back asleep. He said the topic still makes him uneasy because he still sees this woman from time to time to this very day, no matter where he is. He was very quick to ask me to stop discussing the house because he feared he would see her again in his own room. He said she just stands in the corner and watches him with an unpleasant look on her face. Since he asked me not to mention it anymore, I decided not to tell him about the history of the house.
The museum employee told my grandparents that an elderly woman died in the house. Many others have possibly died there as well but she was the most memorable. She was in a wheelchair in her older age and one day she fell down the stairs and fell to her death.
It's very odd. I did say that I never experienced anything in that house, but only because I can't say for sure that I did. When I was 6 I was walking down the steps to throw away some trash. Not even 3 steps from the top I fell and tumbled all the way down the steep wooden staircase. I screamed in pain, but I somehow didn't break anything. Just a few bruises here and there. I'm not exactly sure how I fell, but I do vaguely remember feeling a something on my back before falling.
Maybe I was too young to remember or maybe my mind has just decided to hide the memories away, who knows. My grandparents have since moved away from that house. And despite all the things that were found and horrible stories we all miss living there. And we still wonder to this day what's behind the hollow wall and boarded up window. Many of the family members joke about buying it back just so they can explore and possibly turn it into a museum. I think maybe I still miss this house because it awakened my excitement for all things horror.
