A Ghost Story...Belated.

I got inspiration from April to post this today. I know that I'm a few days past Halloween, but it's my blog and I'll do whatever I want. Sort of like most anything in my life. These stories are totally true and I am not making any of this up.

In 2001, Scott and I moved in to our new house. We built the house ourselves and we were thrilled to be living in our very own home. It was only two bedrooms and one bath, but we built it with the plans of adding on a master suite and a game room on the other side of the great room a few years in the future.

Scott and I are both ghost nuts. We love to watch shows about ghosts, ghouls and vampires on television. Because it was a few days before Halloween, we had been watching the Travel Channel's week long series of shows relating to true hauntings. We had always heard the odd creak, the strange crack ever since we had moved in that July, but we passed it off as a new house settling. One night we went to sleep and we were woken up by a huge CRASH coming from the kitchen. We both sat bolt upright in bed and looked at each other and listened with our mouths open to the distinctive sound of a bowl or a saucer rotating around and around on the tile floor until it settled in a clatter "whaw-whaw-whawhawhawhaw". I glanced at the clock...3:33...and I asked Scott, "What WAS that??" He said that I must have left dishes in the sink and they fell over. I told him that I hadn't left any dishes in the sink and that maybe a cabinet full of dishes had actually fell off the wall...it was that loud. My knight in shining underpants got out of bed to check and see what the heck was going on, and he found nothing. Nothing broken, nothing out of place. Nothing to explain the ridiculously loud crash that scared us half to death and woke us both up from a deep sleep. We nervously giggled that Halloween was coming and maybe we had a ghost, too! Shrugging it off as a "who knows?", we went back to sleep.

The very next night we went to sleep as usual. Nothing out of the ordinary. I had pretty much forgotten about the crash the night before and drifted off to sleep with no problems. We were awoken by the sound of the bathroom door down the hall slamming shut, hard. Again, we both sat upright in bed and looked at each other. I glanced over Scott's shoulder, and the clock glowed 3:33 AM. It was fall, too cool for windows to be left open and not cool enough for the heat to be on and blame the crash on the suction of air with the a/c running. Scott crawled out of bed and creeped down the hall to find the bathroom door, which was open when we went to bed, was now indeed shut. We weren't giggling any more. What made the door slam shut so hard? And hey, didn't last night's crash also happen at 3:33?? What's going on? We tossed and turned the rest of the night with one ear open and listening for strange noises. We didn't hear anything else after.

The next night we were more than a little anxious to see what would happen. Surely nothing, right? I mean, there must be some sort of explanation for the crash and the slam...right? It took me longer than usual to fall asleep, but I finally did. A few hours later we were woke up by three loud thuds on the bedroom wall. Like someone was pounding on it from another room with their fist. Boom-boom-boom. Three times, quickly. Scott reached over and grabbed my arm. I squeaked out, "What time is it??", knowing full well what the answer would be. 3:33 AM. A strange choking feeling rose up in my throat and I felt like I couldn't swallow, I couldn't breathe. Scott jumped out of bed and turned on every light inside and outside, determined to find SOMETHING to explain what we had just heard. And nothing. My brain was running a mile a minute. 3:33, three nights in a row, just heard three loud bangs on the wall. Three three three three. What was it about the three?? I remembered something from a ghost show we had just watched. In the bible, Christ died at 3:00 pm, and some believe 3:00 am is the time of the devil. 3:33 is the time the devil comes to insult the "Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit". Not exactly what I was wanting to remember, but I did. And I still do.

I did some research online the next morning and discovered an old map of Whitesboro. Our property used to belong to Diamond Horse Ranch. The homestead is just down the street from us and has a Texas Historical Marker sign in front of it, marking the grave of James Diamond. The Diamond brothers owned the ranch and were active in Frontier defense. It said that James hated "new comers" and was jittery with people coming on to his land. The legend says that after he died, his ghost tries to run off "newcomers" from "his land".

We didn't hear anything more for about 5 years. Time passed, we added on to the house, we had Abbey. Abbey was about six months old and started to take her 3:00 AM bottle less and less. This particular night, I was up. I remember making the bottle, warming it up. I remember changing her wet diaper and throwing it in the diaper bin. I remember pushing with my toes back and forth, back and forth in the rocking chair while she took the bottle. I then heard a very clear man's voice ask me, "What are you doing?" Assuming that Scott was up and maybe checking on Cole, I called his name down the hallway. Silence answered me. After about ten minutes, Abbey was back to bed and I went to check on Cole who was sound asleep. Puzzled as to who Scott was talking to, I went back to our bedroom to find Scott also sound asleep. I shook him awake and asked him who he was talking to in the hallway. He was totally disoriented and had no idea what I was talking about. I got a chill down the back of my neck and looked at the clock. It was now 3:45. Has I been asked, "What are you doing?" at 3:33?? Was it going to start again? I could hear the voice in my head plain as day, "What are you doing?"

A few nights later Scott and I were woke up by a crash in the kitchen. Scott went out to investigate and said it must have been one of the dogs, as they were walking around when he got to the living room. One of them must have knocked over something. I was too tired to argue and fell back to sleep. The next morning I was up before the kids and I walked down the hall to peek at Abbey. Laying on the floor was a framed aerial photo of the ranch, the glass broken. The nail was still in the wall, at an upward angle. I picked up the broken photo and turned it over to see if the string had broken off the back, but it was intact. I have no explanation for this because in my mind, the photo would have had to have been lifted up and off of the nail. It was hung at eye level, so it was impossible to blame the dogs. And why the photo of the ranch?

Was James Diamond upset with us for living on his ranch??

It's been quiet at the house since then. But I'm sure that something will happen again...soon.