We only have a few more days before Halloween. I saved this repost for last because it’s probably the scariest. I wrote about it last year and I’m bringing it back for your reading…pleasure?

I wrote it in two parts. I’ll put a link on for the second part. I do hope you enjoy…and remember to stay away from things that give you a feeling of ‘not quite right’.  Some of you may remember it from last year, some of you may not have read it. Be prepared to be scared!

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Something happened to me years ago when I was still married to the ex. Now, most who visit and read my blog know that I do believe in ghosts, spirits and things that go bump in the night. I have told you about Abe, the ghost that has lived with me since I was about 4 and who has stayed with me through countless moves, including several across the country and  with my move to Canada.

I’ve had a lot of strange things happen around me all my life. I’ve seen my fair share of strange things.  The story that I am about to tell you is probably one of the creepiest, scariest things that I’ve experienced. Now, I’ve been almost killed 2 or 3 times in my life. I’ve had a ghost that loves to follow me around. I’ve lived through my abusive ex. The true story that I’m going to share with you is something that scared me more than any of that other stuff combined.

My ex decided we should move from Texas, where he was from and where we were living at the time, to Wisconsin where I was from. I had family in upper Wisconsin. Looking back, my ex  probably found  living in Texas a bit uncomfortable after having schemed and conned his way through most of Texas. Me, being the naïve woman I was back then, took him at his word that he just wanted to move so I could be closer to family and our rocky marriage could have a fresh start.

Anyway, my ex and his schemes are for another day. I called my sister and told her of our plans and asked her if she could find us a small place to rent so we could have somewhere to live once we got up there. She was all for it and said she would ask around.  She was sure she could find us something.

True to her word, she called me back a few days later and said she found a place, the rent was cheap and well within our budget, so I told her to tell the people we would take it and that we should be up there at the first of the month, which was only a few weeks away. I packed up our belongings in record time, the ex managed to get hold of a U-Haul and off we went cross-country for a new beginning.

We moved in the beginning of winter. Winter in Texas is usually pretty mild, winter in upper Wisconsin is a whole new experience, if you’ve never lived through one. We managed to get there in one piece, just a day late of our schedule due to the U-Haul breaking down in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night our second day out. The ex managed to get it going again though, and we traveled on. We made it the third day out,  traveling almost none stop. We met my sister at her place and she was going to have us follow her, first to the realtor who was renting the house, to pick up the key, then to the house we were going to call home.

We drove up to the house which was on a quiet country road. It looked nice, not too big and it had a basement that was heated so the ex could work down there. I was pleasantly surprised. We started to unpack the truck right away, as it was cold and it had started to snow. The dogs (we had 4 dogs then) were put in the basement while we unloaded and set the house up. The house we were told was hand-built by the former owners, it only had one bedroom, a living room, kitchen and one bath. It was plenty big enough for us. I thought it looked cute, but I remember from the very beginning I had these feelings of foreboding. I put it down as just being very tired.

We got the truck unloaded and I let the dogs come out of the basement and see their new home. They went sniffing around as animals will do, but I noticed they wouldn’t enter the bedroom. They would just stop in the doorway, look inside with their tails down and then back out and never go in. I was too tired and too busy to give it much more notice than that at the time.

By nightfall I was more than ready for a hot shower and bed. One of the smaller dogs always slept in the same room as I did. He was my little shadow, they all were, but he was my baby. I finished my shower said good night to the ex who was watching TV and headed for the bedroom.

I crawled into bed and waited for my dog to jump into bed with me. He didn’t. So I sat up and he was lying in the doorway. I called to him, he stood up and whined at me, but wouldn’t set foot into the bedroom. I was too tired to try to convince him so I just laid back down and drifted off to sleep. I remember briefly waking up when the ex crawled into bed.  I was having weird dreams that night. Nothing new for me as I was always having weird dreams, but these dreams turned into scary dreams rather quickly. I dreamed that I was lying in bed, in that same room and was looking toward the dark doorway. I saw someone standing there. I turned my head toward the other side of the bed and saw the ex laying there sleeping. My heart was thumping hard, I was scared, but I couldn’t seem to move.  The shadow moved into the bedroom, to my side of the bed. I couldn’t see a face or clothing or anything really, it was just a dark shadow moving toward me as if in slow motion.

I vaguely recall a couple of the dogs growling from the hallway, but my eyes were on the shadow as if something compelled me to watch. I wanted to yell, but couldn’t get my voice to work. As the deep shadow reached my side of the bed, I saw it raise its arm and I saw the distinct outline of an ax. I was terrified, but couldn’t scream! I don’t know what happened after that, as the next thing I know I feel the ex getting out of bed and turn and see the clock on the dresser saying 7am. I still felt residual fear, but finally shrugged it off as me just having a nightmare.

I got out of bed, feeling tired and a bit shaky, but again thinking I had just had a nightmare. Though that morning I did try again to coax the dogs into the bedroom and not a one would step foot in it. Later that day one of the dogs stood in the hallway and barked at the open bedroom door. I told it to hush and looked inside and didn’t see anything that he would be barking at. The room wasn’t big, it just had enough room for our bed, dresser and a nightstand. On the wall on my side of the bed was a big old mirror that came with the house. It was kind of ornate, looked old and helped make the room look bigger so I left it there.

About that time the phone rang and I went to answer it. It was my sister and during our conversation it was brought up that the previous owners of the house had both died in the bedroom. The son had it up for sale, but since house sales were really slow at that time of the year, he had been more than willing to rent it out for a time. His parents had built it themselves out of a lot of found materials. The father had worked for the town for many years and if you went down into the basement and looked up you could see the discarded road signs that made up the subflooring. Strange, but I thought kind of interesting. The man apparently  died of old age in the bedroom while being cared for by the wife. The wife later died   a few years after the husband passed, but there were rumors she didn’t die of natural causes. I just laughed it off as I knew that small towns always were full of such rumors. The son lived in the big city and didn’t want the place, even as a summer home so it was up for sale.

I finished my conversation with my sister and put more things away in the house. In the back of my mind was a niggling thought about the nightmare I had. I wondered if the house was haunted. Why wouldn’t the dogs go in the bedroom? I knew the man in the bedroom wasn’t Abe, as the shadow didn’t look like Abe. Also, the shadow with the ax felt ominous, dark and scary. That wasn’t Abe at all!

The night came and I got ready for bed. I was a bit anxious and hoped I didn’t have another nightmare. When I went into the bedroom, my dog again refused to follow me in and just lay in the doorway and watched me. I was more aware of my surroundings this night and noticed something really weird about the big mirror on the wall. There were red dots in it! I at first thought I was seeing a reflection of something, so I turned on the light and looked around. There was nothing that would cast red dots in the mirror. I looked at the mirror with the lights on and didn’t see any red dots, so I turned the light off and looked again. Sure enough, red dots! And they were moving! I yelled for the ex to come see and he came into the bedroom and saw them too. He just laughed at me and told me I was silly. That they were obviously a reflection of something and it was late and he was tired and just wanted to sleep.

So I crawled into bed, tired, anxious and just a bit scared. Something didn’t feel right to me, but the ex wasn’t listening. So I closed my eyes and tried to close my mind off too. What happened that night scared the crap out of me and convinced me that the mirror was haunted.

Here’s the link to part 2……The Haunted Mirror