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Ghosts: There Came Three Knocks

A Ghost Story Based On A True Story

By Jeff JohnsonPublished 3 years ago 7 min read
2
Photo of the actual house

After being coaxed into this, I finally decided to cave in and tell the story as best I can remember. At this point, what strand of credibility I had left might as well shoot it down, right. Above is my house; this house has been the center of many family gatherings, from heart-felt moments at family dinners to heartbreaking wakes.

When I was younger, there was always something going on; Mom was always busy taking care of my little brother that was very ill. He couldn't walk, eat on his own or speak, so he had to be fed and care for twenty-four hours a day like a newborn baby until he was fifteen years old. He had seizures often, so no loud noises, no music playing, and no "Kid stuff" in the house.

However, outside, that was a whole other matter. The kids in the neighborhood and family would stop by, have fun, laugh, play ride bikes, dance in the yard, and do all the stuff kids did before cell phones. Video games became a thing. There were no street lights, so when it was dark, game time was over. We would all sit on the porch, fight off the mosquitos and gnats and tell ghost stories. Now I can see how credulous we were or were we. I question that now.

I heard my dad saying one day in a disturbed voice, "We will have to tell him at some point." I didn't understand what it was about, so I didn't think about it. That conversation would be placed on the back burner when my grandpa passed away. He was also our neighbor and had a knack for making me feel like a big boy; he was 5'2" so was I, so we saw eye to eye on a lot of things literally. Only I was ten; he was eighty-four.

His death shook me in ways I can't explain. I had been around people that had died before we lived by a small church, so I grew accustomed to death, but no one close to me had died before. It was so permanent that my mind couldn't handle how permanent this death thing was affecting me deeply. I could feel my emotions twisting, bent out of shape.

Later on, and after several other people passed away, I stumbled across this lady. She took one look at me and said. "Oh, you have been touched by an angel." I thought she was trying to be a smart-aleck because of the birthmark on my face. She said that a birthmark means an angel has touched you. I had heard my grandmother say that, so I said, "What does that mean?" she sat down with me and said, "It means you are special." (I had heard that, but it was usually pejoratively spoken when referring to me and my antics). She talked, and I listened. She said do you see things out of the corner of your eyes? I said, "Yes." She asked, "Do you hear stuff that sounds like someone whispering to you?" I have more than once. I replied yes.

After that conversation, I walked away feeling different, armed, I would say, but not in an ordinary sense. Now I had my demons, those boogers under the bed right where I wanted them. Time passed, and not much happened. Then one night, I noticed my little brother began to breathe funny.

I told mom and pop I said he needs to go to the hospital. He's not breathing right. They just looked at each other, they got their stuff together, and in the snowstorm, they took him. They came home, which was surprising. I didn't expect to see them back until morning or at least the wee hours of the morning. Mom looked pale, and pop had a ghastly look on his face.

I spoke to a friend that night she and I talked. I told her I had dreamed of his passing and even saw what happened next. In the week hours of the morning, I heard those horrible words that still wrench my soul today, "My babies dead," followed by uncontrollable sobbing. My soul went into shock. How could this happen? Were we at fault somehow? Did we not take care of him? Again my mind went into a horrible tossing and turning that I couldn't handle one more minute of the agony.

So I went to stay with a friend of mine. He calmed me down, and we talked. He was very soothing to me. It was years before I could talk about that night; even now, I get a frog in my throat just discussing it. However, now some stuff's different. Now thirty years later, I sleep in the room where he passed away.

There is a ball that rolls through the house. We don't have balls in the place. I had two pugs that stayed in the room with me, and one day there was a voice that came out of nowhere, so plane they jumped up and started looking at the door, like "What was that?" I heard it too.

Stuff falls off shelves, and mom now swears the house might be haunted, often whispering, "Do you think maybe this place is haunted?" She hears things too. To test this, I moved the bed to where he passed away and covered my head up one night. I will never make that mistake again, WOW what an experience that was. Since then, I've read hundreds of books, and one of the strangest things is learning to listen to what the universe tells me and not always following the traditional lines of "This will work if you do it." I started finding feathers and a tiny voice said, "Make a fan." So I did

Next comes the knocking, always in threes. Sometimes the knocking is on the inside of the house. Sometimes, it's on the outside. Then, there are times I can walk through the house, and out of the corner of my eye, I can see someone sitting on the bed, and mom will be sitting in the living room watching TV, and in a flash, they will be gone.

One night while watching TV, I felt a distortion, a glitch in the matrix, for lack of a better way of putting it, and a wave appeared right before my eyes, then an indent on my mattress exactly like someone had set down. I sat up in the bed, horrified. I hop up and rush through the house, completely disturbed. Thankfully a family member was staying with us at the time and distracted me, and I had time to get my mind off what I had seen. Keeping it to myself, I talked with him to soothe my nerves and told myself it was just my imagination.

The next day, I wake up and find myself rudely awakened by teenagers needing a ride to town. There in I found myself confronted by a person I had cut ties with, and he asked me, "Did you hear? Your X died last night? I sat there in awe, speechless. I drove home and just locked myself up in my room and tried to grasp. "Could that have been this person trying to reach out to me?" I kept searching my mind and thinking, "Am I losing my mind?"

Shortly after that, I noticed soft touches, little soft touches on my hands and shoulders, hair ticklers when there was no fan on, or no wind blowing. I was sitting and drawing deep in thought, and I felt a hand touch my right side, and on my left side, a young face appeared in the smoke. As quickly as he appeared, he disappeared. I wasn't afraid nor terrified. My pugs were, however, insert pug screams and barking and woofing.

Fast forward to 2017, I had a massive seizure and had to spend time in ICU. There were debates with doctors talking over my bed left and right. I heard them all. I found myself extremely angry with one that told me I was too fat. Again I found myself visited by the glitch in the matrix; this time, the glitch was lines and what seems to be a new emotional guidance system.

I can see people in a completely different light, and sadly I find myself giving that glaring stare. They seem to be doomed. I call it the death stare. I don't always understand when I'm doing it until later on when someone says. "Why were you staring at them?" I have no control over it. A few days later, sometimes a month. I find out they have passed away.

Scientists say you store memories in the things around you and water that your consciousness isn't entirely within your brain. I say there is far more to that to know and explore. We are more than one, but we are less than we, but we are all equal and come from the same power to rejoin the energy. It speaks to us just like we talk to it.

I believe if we stop believing in things, then a considerable portion of what makes us who we are dies: our storytelling, our human-ness, our ability to connect to others fails. Life is just better, more full, and richer when we have creative stuff to believe more significant with our imagination fully engaged.

urban legend
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About the Creator

Jeff Johnson

I am that late bloomer that decided to follow his passion late in life. I live for stories that are out of bounds, unusual, and beyond normal limits. I thrive on comedies, horror stories, and stories that tug at your heart.

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