The Hauntings on Joshua Street

A true story of a family haunted by paranormal forces, while living in their home, in Alton, Illinois. 

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Hello listeners and welcome to Dark Corner! My name is Kyle Coffman and I’ll be your host on this episode. If you like listening to this podcast please LIKE, FOLLOW, SUBSCRIBE, whatever your podcast player has you do haha… and if you would post a review that would be great too. We thank you for listening and your dedication to Dark Corner. If you are new to Dark Corner or this is your first episode you’re tuning into.. welcome. If you’re returning for another scary story, welcome back!

On our last episode I told you all about the haunted town I’m from… Alton, IL… Listed as one of the most haunted towns in America Alton has its fair share of ghosts and even demonic activity. If you haven’t listened to our last episode, Haunted Alton, definitely give it a listen.

This episode is called The Hauntings on Joshua Street and is a true story of someone I personally know that lived in a house that was held hostage by something supernatural in Alton IL. After Haunted Alton’s episode aired a couple weeks ago, my friend reached out to me and told me he had a story that happened to him and his family when we were in high school. He said he journaled all of their incidents at the time, and pulled it out of storage and recently sent to me to read. I thought it would make a great episode on Dark Corner since we just had an episode on Haunted Alton. I do want to say I know this person personally and he has absolutely no reason to lie about what happened to him and his family in the past. So this is a true ghost story I’m about to read you. For the sake of his privacy I have changed the names of those involved, per his request, but every bit of this story is true. There are no exaggerations or folklore in this story. Just the raw truth of what happened to him and his family.

So without further ado, here we go…. 

Based on the actual true story that happened to Michael Preston.

What’s your favorite scary movie? That is a question asked in one of my favorite horror movies. Everyone has to have a favorite scary movie. Rather you’re into slasher flicks, paranormal or just plain gore. A scary movie is what keeps us as an audience entertained. For two hours we get to escape reality and enter the world of horror to scare ourselves. The thrill is like riding a roller coaster. When the movie is over, everything returns to normal and nothing you just watched was real. But what if the nightmare of a scary movie is real? What if after the two hours is over, the hell is still surrounding you. What if you couldn’t escape? That wouldn’t make a scary movie so much fun to watch anymore, would it? To live the nightmare of being haunted every day and nothing can be done about it.

For years I have told people the story of my family’s haunting years ago. Most people are skeptics and judge me instantly. Skeptics. Why shouldn’t they be though? Seeing truly is believing and unless you have actually experienced the paranormal, you just can’t believe it. I know this because no one in my family believed in the paranormal and neither did I, but after many incidents of unexplained phenomenon you eventually have to face that maybe something unexplainable is happening. My words to all those who instantly slam anyone that is claiming to be haunted as being crazy... You’re just lucky it hasn’t happened to you.

It all started in the summer of 1997. In order for the flow of this to make sense I want to introduce you to my family. There is my mom and dad and my slightly older brother, Billy. I have a sister who is seven years older than me named Hannah. My mom, dad, Billy, and me lived in Phoenix, Arizona for a year and half and decided to move back to my hometown of Alton, Illinois. Hannah didn’t live with us in Phoenix as she was married with a two-year-old daughter named Veronica. We moved to Phoenix for various reasons, but things did not work out and my mom and dad wanted to return home. My dad had to move back before us since he found a job and my mom had to sell our house in Phoenix. My parents had agreed they would go house shopping when they were both together so my dad would have to find temporary housing until we all returned from Phoenix.

My dad decided to rent a house next door to Hannah’s house, which she rented as well. The house was built in 1950. It had one level with a basement. The one level had one bedroom, one full bath, a nice size living room and a very large kitchen. At the back of the house, in the kitchen, was an open stairwell to the basement. There was no basement door. Rather the open stairs formed right from the floor. The basement was the entire size of the main level. It had two bedrooms that had blood red carpet and a large area for a washer and dryer. The rent was cheap and it was perfect for my dad. The reason he rented it was because of the 2 bedrooms downstairs for Billy and me. Another convenient reason to rent the house was because it was next door to my sister, Hannah and Veronica. I should also

mention Hannah is married to Mark, He’s not really significant in this story, but for description purposes later it will be helpful to know at least his name. My dad lived in the house on Glover Street for two months before we came back from Phoenix, AZ.

The landlord was a man in his 70s by the name of Harold. Harold decided to rent the house because he moved in with his girlfriend. Yes, people in their 70’s date too.

In August 1997, my mom, dad, Billy and I reunited and moved into this small house on Glover Street. Billy and I ended up not being allowed to put beds in our blood red carpeted bedrooms downstairs due to no fire exit and if the Fire Marshall found out, Harold could get fined and in trouble. Living in this house was also supposed to be temporary. Temporary until mom and dad could find a permanent house for us to live in.

Moving into the house on Glover Street wasn’t that difficult considering most of our furniture and belongings went to a storage unit until our permanent house could be found. Billy was really into music so his bedroom got to house his amp, guitars, stereo, etc. I was able to move a computer desk into my room and set up my HP desktop, which I lived on. America Online and chat rooms were really big in 1997.

It Begins

My mom had been working for 20 years and my dad was bringing in enough income that he didn’t want my mom to work anymore. I just turned 15 and my brother was 17. This was the beginning of my freshman year of high school and Billy was a senior. My dad wanted my mom to enjoy life as a housewife since she had worked so hard for so many years and raised three kids. Since we just returned from Phoenix, after being gone for a year in a half, my mom was happy to be so close to my sister, Hannah and their first grandchild, Veronica. Hannah, living right next door, was a blessing because Mark worked as well and Hannah and Veronica stayed home. Needless to say, mom and Hannah got very close in this month.

My mom was in her bedroom one day in the afternoon when something caught her attention. This house had pull down shades that covered the windows. These shades existed when we moved in and had probably been there for decades since they screamed 1960s. Mom had hung some white curtains to give the room a bit of a woman’s touch. On this particular day, the A/C was not on and there weren’t any windows opened. Everything was still and quiet except for the white curtains, which were moving as if there was a breeze blowing them. My mom kind of stared at this for a moment and immediately decided some form of an explanation as to why these curtains were moving on their own. Surely, the A/C kicked in and I was unaware she thought. But after convincing herself this was normal; she noticed the thermostat was off! She double-checked the window and sure enough it was sealed shut. Not really entertaining the idea anymore she moved on with this as just one of those strange things in life that happened. I sure wish that was true because this was only the beginning.

Billy

When the decision was made to move back home and leave Phoenix everyone was on board except for my brother, Billy. Billy and I had always been close as brothers when we were younger. Because we were so close in age, 19 months apart to be exact, we fell in the same social circles often. Kid’s social circles that is. Billy and I often played with the neighborhood kids and he was your typical older brother. Hold me down and force me to say he was cool or he wouldn’t let me up. Typical brother stuff. When we moved to Albuquerque in 1995 he was entering high school and was at the age he didn’t want to play with his little brother anymore. He fell into the wrong crowd in Albuquerque and got involved in the stereotypical teenage wasteland. Marijuana, cigarettes, etc. He had a close group of friends he did not want to leave, but in the end it was the best thing for him. He met a girl named Whitney around the time the decision was made to move back to Alton, Illinois. He and her fell utterly in love with each other and embraced the final two months in Albuquerque like a young Romeo and Juliet. When we finally moved it broke their hearts and they decided to start a long distance relationship promising that one day they will reunite and continue their love for each other. Love is very serious for 16 years olds you know.

One day I came home from school to find the house was empty. As I did every day from school, I came to my bedroom in the basement. Billy’s bedroom was across the hall from mine and his door was closed. I peeked my head in and found it to be empty as well. Ah, the whole house to myself. I came into my room and logged onto dial up on America Online. I turned on my small boom box to my favorite radio station and begin to play on the Internet. It wasn’t very long when I heard something coming from Billy’s room. My door had been open the whole time, though my back was to the door. I figured I would have thought I would have heard him come downstairs. I turned my radio off and listened to see if I had actually heard something coming from his room or not. As I listened in silence, I did hear something. Billy was in his room crying. I immediately came to the conclusion he and a new girl he was seeing, must have had a fight on the phone. The long distance thing did not go at all as expected for either of them and they had been fighting a lot. Being hundreds of miles away for two bleeding 17-year-old hearts isn’t as easy as one may think. The crying got a bit louder. I thought it would be the brotherly thing to do and check on him. I came closer to his closed door and said his name softly, “Billy?” Of course, there was no response. I still heard him sobbing tough. I knocked on his door and still didn’t get a response. I decided to just go in. If I got screamed at then I would get screamed at, but Billy may want to talk about it. He may just have needed me. When I opened the door, the crying instantly stopped and silence returned. No one was in the room. It was as empty as it was when I came home. I stood there in bewilderment for a moment and entered the room and opened the closet door. Nothing. No one had been in here. What did I hear? Suddenly, GOOD- BYE blasted from the speakers in my bedroom and America Online had kicked me offline. I nearly leaped out of my skin and ran upstairs.

Aware

Often times my mom and Hannah would have lunch at our house during the day while Billy and I were at school. Dad and Hannah’s husband would be working so it was just girl time. Girl time for my mom, Hannah and baby Veronica. One weekday afternoon the three girls were having lunch sitting at the kitchen table. Out of nowhere BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM erupted from the stairs. Hannah has gone on record stating it sounded like someone just fell down the stairs. The sound was so audible it made little Veronica jump out of her chair. My mom and sister just stared at each other for about 30 seconds until their nerves could let them have control over their bodies once again. My sister’s eyes grew large in fear and said, “What the hell was that?”

My mom took a deep breath and nodded her head in disbelief. They both looked over the railing banister at the stairs and nothing was there. No bowling balls had rolled down the stairs and my 22lb cat, Shadow, didn’t fall down the stairs. No reasonable explanation could be provided to either of them as to what they had just heard. My mom and sister returned to their seats. My mom looked at my sister and said, “There have been some weird things going on in this house.” Curious, my sister wanted to know what other events had occurred and my mom explained to her about her experience with the window curtain and my hearing someone crying in Billy’s bedroom.

Mom and dad had begun their search for a permanent home for us. This rental wasn’t as nice as it had once seemed because Billy and I could not officially turn our bedrooms into actual “bed” rooms due to not being allowed to have a bed downstairs. We could have just done it anyway, but Harold visited the house every so often to ensure we weren’t doing exactly just that. Apparently, the fire marshal ordered him to make routine inspections to prevent anyone sleeping in a basement without a proper exit. Billy and I had been sleeping in the living room at night. Though our bedrooms in the basement were functional as private rooms we could be in to store our clothes and personal belongings, they weren’t really ideal for anything to do after twilight. Billy would sleep on the couch in the living room, and I would sleep on a feather bed that would be stored under the couch during the day, in the middle of the living room. That feather bed was quite comfy as a matter of fact. My dad would often stay up into the wee hours of the morning watching television. This he could only do in the living room since there was only one television in the house and it was bothersome to me. Billy preferred to sleep with the television on. I cannot, so my dad would annoy me with this and I would complain to my mom about it.

Billy and I weren’t present for many of the homes my mom and dad would look at, but one evening they sat us down to tell us they think they have found our next house. It is a fairly new neighborhood that had been built in the last 18 months and there was a 2-story split level home currently under construction. This would be ideal to purchase at this time because then my mom and dad would get to decide all the finishes and upgrades that go into the home.

At this point, it had already been a month in the house on Glover Street and Billy and I were ready to settle down into a stable house. We missed a lot of our

belongings, that were in storage, and couldn’t be happier mom and dad found a place.

The next day we drove to the house. It is on Joshua Street. The neighborhood was secluded and full of little kids playing. We drove upon the house that was still wrapped in Tyvek. Siding and shudders still hadn’t been picked out yet and it was our choice what we wanted.

The style of the home was called a California sideway spilt. You enter to a foyer and to your right are seven stairs to the upper level and seven stairs to the lower level. The lower level is built halfway into the ground, so it technically isn’t a basement. Though the house had just now finished framing we could see the rooms and got very excited. The upper level had a huge master suite complete with a sitting room in the master bedroom and walk in closet and of course its own bathroom. Next to the master suite was what will be my bedroom. It was the smallest room in the house, but I was the youngest, so I didn’t get a choice. A full bathroom is the guest bathroom that sat in front of my bedroom. A living room, kitchen, and eating area could be found on the upper floor as well.

The lower level featured a very large bedroom with a huge walk-in closet. This, for some reason, was automatically assumed to be Billy’s room. A large utility room, where the washer and dryer will go, is next to his bedroom. A very spacious family room fills the lower level complete with a marble fireplace. Another living room is the back of the lower level with a full bath. This house is 2400sf and has 3 bedrooms, 3 full baths, and plenty of space. It is important you know the exact rooms because each room will have its own story.

The four of us walked through the house, that was still under construction, and couldn’t wait to move in. Eight weeks left and it would be ours. We were all very excited.

Not long after our tour, my mom and dad put a contract on the house. My mom, Hannah, and Veronica were over for lunch again on a weekday afternoon. Mom had left the kitchen for a moment and Hannah heard something coming from the basement. It sounded like someone was ruffling plastic bags. Like the ones you get from a grocery store when they bag up your groceries. “Mom, is one of the boys home?” Hannah asked.

Mom returned to the kitchen. “No, they’re both in school. Why?” Hannah holds up her finger to silence my mom. My mom listens too, and the rustling sounds continue. Mom and Hannah look at one another in concern. My mom slowly approached the stairs and hollers into the basement. “Billy? Michael?” Maybe one of us was home and they just didn’t know it. The rustling of the bags suddenly stopped. Mom looks at Hannah confused.

Mom slowly starts to step down the stairs. “Hello?” She shouts out. Hannah is inches behind her hoping to catch any glimpse of what’s going on. As they arrive to the bottom of the stairs, they see several plastic grocery bags thrown around the dryer and on the floor. My mom saved our plastic grocery bags and kept them in a cloth like tube. Whenever we needed one, we just pulled it out of the tube and then you have it. Somehow, these bags had been pulled out of the tube, one by one, and

spewed around the floor. Mom and Hannah looked at each other at this moment and raced up the stairs.

The Existence of Ghosts

I come from a pretty spiritual background. My entire life I attended church nearly every Wednesday and Sunday. We were enrolled in Sunday school classes, church programs, camp outs and fundraisers. My mother came from a Catholic background and left the Catholic Church before I was born. Her mother and father were very religious too. Being raised this way pretty much branded any existence of ghosts to be obsolete. We believed that when a person dies their soul goes to Heaven or Hell. They do not roam the earth freely to haunt the living or complete unfinished business from when they were living. Paranormal activity is just something for the movies. As I stated earlier, seeing is believing and when you experience what we had already experienced at this point, you must sit down, clear your mind, and actually accept that there may be some truth to the existence of ghosts.

We decided to call a family meeting and discuss what we had experienced so far and find out if my dad had experienced anything and had just not told us his stories yet. Dad had lived in this house for 2 months before our arrival so if we were experiencing this paranormal activity almost immediately after we moved in, surely, he would have some unexplained phenomenons to add. The conversation did not go well. Dad denied having experienced anything out of the ordinary and came up with ridiculous explanations as to everything that had happened to us in this housee. Here are the answers he gave us.

-The curtains moving: This must have been because the wind from Mom’s body walking near the curtains made it move. Even though mom was far from the curtains when she saw it and stood still.

-Crying in Billy’s room: I must have been hearing things because my radio was on. Even though when I turned the radio off, I still heard crying.

-4 booms from the stairs: This is the house settling. The house is old.

-Shuffling of the plastic bags: They must have fallen because the dryer was vibrating the tube the plastic bags were stored in. The dryer wasn’t on. And to take a plastic bag out of the tube, takes force as they’re all jammed in there.

We stared at him and his explanations in disbelief. He had an answer for everything. How could this be? Then I realized my own words. Seeing is believing. He hadn’t been haunted in this house before and if he had, he unknowingly was, and ignored it.

Over the next few weeks, the hauntings had become a regular thing for my family, except my dad of course. Having just moved back I was able to reconnect with an old childhood friend named Greg. Now we were teenagers and into girls, so we circled the field a bit. That’s what we thought we were doing at the time. Circling the field. Once I became older and realized the true definition of it, we were just two teenage boys lusting for girls. I started to date a girl named Jamie. By dating that would mean we would meet out at the mall or have our parents drop us off at the movies since neither one of us could drive. I would spend hours on the phone with my friends late at night. One night I was in the basement talking on the phone with Jamie. I was not in my room in the basement and everyone else was sleeping upstairs. I was in the part of the basement that was directly below the kitchen. That way if my muffled voice could be heard upstairs, no one would hear me unless they were in the kitchen. We were on the phone for about an hour when she received another call and put me on hold. She kept me on hold for quite a while, but I paced in the 10 foot by 10 foot area I was in, while I waited. Suddenly, I got this overwhelming feeling that I was being watched. This feeling was particularly disturbing since I knew no one else was in the basement with me and the rest of my family was upstairs sleeping. It was a feeling so intense that I immediately got goosebumps. I kind of looked around my surroundings, but no one was there. The feeling became so eerie I couldn’t stay down there anymore. As I began to head towards the stairs a box had fallen off the shelf from where I was nearly standing before. I didn’t investigate, I flew up the stairs so quickly my footsteps were abandoned behind me.

I distinctly remember an incident in the kitchen as if it was yesterday. For some reason this particular haunting has stuck with me from the day it happened and probably will continue for the rest of my life. It was a Sunday evening and I was the only one home. The sun was just setting and I was washing dishes. From the kitchen window I could see Hannah and Veronica playing in their yard. Her husband had all the doors of his truck open and the music was blaring as he was vacuuming his truck. I smiled as my two-year-old niece was playing when someone came up from behind me. The kitchen filled with such negative energy I almost forgot to breathe. The thickness of the negativity was almost painful. Then I felt someone breathing warm, almost hot, air on the back of my neck. I froze immediately. Hands still covered with dish soap holding the glass I was washing. And in a moment of pure adrenaline, I whipped around to find no one was behind me. The kitchen was still filled with an atmosphere that almost felt very bad. I dried my hands off and took off to tell Hannah what had happened. One thing was for sure... I was not going back in that house unless someone was with me.

MOVING OUT

The day had finally arrived when our new house on Josh Drive had finished. We couldn’t be happier to leave the house on Glover Street that we now referred to as the “haunted house.” Nothing strange or paranormal happened during our move out experience. Whatever was in the house wasn’t angry we were leaving. Probably pleased to see us go since our presence obviously disturbed it. Everyone in my family had outgrown the small house. Billy and I were especially happy to have our own room that our beds could actually go in. Mom and dad were happy to move on with our permanent living conditions.

MOVING TO JOSHUA STREET

Moving in was a very pleasant experience. Going from an 800sf house to 2400sf made all of us feel like we were moving into a mansion. We moved at the end of October 1997. I remember settling into my new room and unpacking and just thankful we didn’t have to worry about anymore paranormal activity. We basically concluded the house on Glover Street was haunted and who ever moved in after us was their problem to deal with. No one talked about actual ghosts to each other anyway.

Over the first week of moving in, it was just unpacking to be done. Since a lot of our stuff had been in storage from our Phoenix move, it was fun to open the boxes and see some of our belongings we had missed for so long. One afternoon my mom was setting up a small table to put the kitchen phone on. She placed a table cover over the table and stepped out of the kitchen for a moment. When she returned the site horrified her. The table cover had been flipped inside out. She was only gone for a moment! What happened? No one could have flipped it over in the short period of time she was gone. She took a deep breath and paused for a moment. She decided then that this would be a secret she would keep to herself. Perhaps a fluke, but the rest of the family didn’t need to know. There is no way this new house is haunted too. It’s a brand-new house.

Over the next year the hauntings continued and each of us experienced our own issues in this new house. It was just like it was on Glover Street. Did whatever occupied Glover Street’s house follow us to Joshua Street? This couldn’t be. She called the Pastor, of our local church, to come out and he blessed every window and every door and ordered whatever unnatural supernatural being there to flee the house at once. This worked, but for only 6 months and then it returned. This time showing itself.

Dad had always continued with “reasonable” explanations as to what the hauntings were. Even in this house. We had all finally shared our new experiences that were happening to us. Mom finally told us the story of the phone table cover that happened when we first moved in.

IT TAKES FORM

One night I was sleeping and suddenly woke up in the middle of the night. I had a corner computer desk about three feet from the foot of my twin bed. Sitting in front of the computer desk was a chair. I felt like I was being watched. Perhaps this was the reason I woke up so suddenly. When I looked up, I noticed someone was sitting in my computer chair looking at me. He was a thin Caucasian man in his early thirties. He had very short hair and was wearing a red flannel shirt and blue jeans. His right leg was folded over his left leg and he was just staring at me. He wasn’t staring in an unsettling way, but more like watching me. I immediately froze. Were my eyes playing tricks on me? Was I dreaming? I rubbed my eyes with my hands and looked up again, but the man was still there. There is no way this can be real. My heart was racing. I rubbed my eyes once more and looked up once again and he was still there. I panicked. Like a scared little child, I scooped the covers up and pulled

them over my head. I was breathing heavily and praying to God that whatever was sitting in that chair go away. Then it hit me. Despite the hauntings we’ve experienced what if this was a real person? What if someone had broken into our home and he was on the lookout to watch me? Unexpectantly, with a sudden burst of adrenaline, I ripped the covers away and sat straight up in bed within a second only to find... The chair was now empty and the man was no longer there. I exhaled a long breath and sat there for what felt like hours trying to understand what had just happened. Who was that man? Why was he watching me?

I later concluded that the man didn’t seem to be hostile or wasn’t trying to scare me. To this day I wonder who he was and why he was watching me. I often ponder if he was a guardian angel sent to set things right with the other spirits in the house. Sent to protect me perhaps. I never saw him again, but I still can remember, as if it were yesterday, what he looked like. I should visit a sketch artist and I could describe him perfectly, but I think I like the feeling of knowing that I know what my guardian angel looks like, and I only know, is safe enough for me.

Ouija Board

One of the worst things you can do when dealing with the paranormal is playing the Ouija Board. This of course is something that’s usually learned after the fact when it is too late. Even though you can make a board yourself or purchase one from your local toy store, this is not a game. Even if you are a non-believer of paranormal activity, you can unleash evil just by playing the Ouija Board one time. By age 16, my curiosity got the best of me and I wanted to find out who was haunting our house and where it came from. I saw an Ouija board, at Spencer’s in the mall, for $20 and bought it. Knowing you would need at least 2 players to play, I called my sister and asked if she would come over and play the Ouija board with me. She was hesitant at first, but once I said, “don’t you want to know who is haunting us?” She was all in.

It was evening time in the summer and well-lit outside. No one was home except me and my sister came right over. We both sat cross-legged, in the downstairs living room in front of the fireplace, and began to place our two fingers, each, on the oracle. We moved it around in subtle circles calling to whatever spirit was there to communicate with us. We were both skeptics on this game from the beginning, but when that oracle moved the first time, I looked at my sister’s face and she was glaring at me like “yeah Michael, I know you’re moving it.” Except I wasn’t... It was moving either by itself, or she was moving in. And when she saw the truth in my face the color left her face instantly. She knew I wasn’t moving it, and by her shock, I now knew she wasn’t moving it.

We decided to continue and ask what the ghost’s name was. The oracle chose these letters one by one, N, A, C, E. Nace? What kind of name is that? But when I said Nace out loud, the oracle moved to YES. My sister’s face looked like she had seen a ghost, so I want to make it clear once more, this thing was being moved by Nace because I wasn’t moving it, and my sister isn’t an actress by any means, and she was terrified at this point. I told Hannah to focus and we kept on our questions.?” Hanna then asked Nace if it was a boy or a girl. He spelled B O Y. “Where did you come from?” He spelled HOUSE. “This house?” The oracle went to NO.

My sister and I looked at each other in bewilderment. Came from house, but not this house? And then it hit me. Glover Street. I immediately asked Nace “Did you come from Glover Street?” The oracle shot to YES.

“How did you get here?” We asked. It spelled FURNITURE. We looked at each other puzzled. “You followed us on furniture?” YES. Then it dawned on me that some believe spirits can attach themselves to items. Did Nace attach himself to the furniture and follow us here?

“How did you die?” My sister asked. The oracle spelled C O R N. Corn? What the hell? Again, we looked at each other in bewilderment. And then Hannah blurted out, “did you choke on corn?” And the oracle immediately went to YES. This is where things got a little bit weird, the oracle then spelled the word STAIRS.

“Stairs?” We asked it and then the oracle went to YES. At this point, Nace wasn’t really making sense to us anymore, but we both remembered the thudding of the stairs in that house on Glover Street. And just like that, the oracle stopped moving. We wanted to continue our conversation, but nothing. No matter what we asked or commanded Nace to come back to us, nothing. This made me believe in this whole thing even more because my sister was truly as surprised as I was about everything that just happened.

We put the Ouija board away and promised each other we would try again at another time. I made sure to hide it in a really good hiding place in the back of my closet because I knew if my mom saw it, all hell would hit the fan.

Whatever we did playing the Ouija board was a huge mistake because we made things worse. Some paranormal experts, and even demonologists, would agree that playing the Ouija board is like opening a portal to the spirit world, a portal that may and probably will let in true evil.

The hauntings got worse. My dad started to see shadow people, out of the corner of his eyes, regularly late at night, while he watched TV in the downstairs living room. He finally admitted to us that he was seeing them. They were fast he said, and sometimes he would see 2-3 at a time, racing behind each other. It only occurred around midnight during the nights it happened.

There are a lot of theories on what “shadow people” are. Some believe they are time travelers through dimension and cast their shadow when they travel through time. Others believe that they are evil spirits, and this is the only form they can take.

My brother would be woken up at 3am to 3 knocks on his bedroom door. For many nights, right at 3am. The first night he got up thinking it was one of us and when he opened his bedroom door, no one was there. He went back to bed, and the knocks returned the next night at 3am. This time he came to my bedroom and my parent’s bedroom to see if we did it, and he said we were all sleeping. For six nights in a row this went on. Every night right at 3am.

The hauntings had become so frequent that it was almost a nightly occurrence that something would happen. I remember going to sleep one night and turning off the lamp next to my bed, when I saw the shadow of a man walking on my wall. This is not to be mistaken with shadow people that take on odd forms, this literally looked like a man was walking in my bedroom and his shadow was being casted onto the wall from the outside moonlight. But ever since that guardian angel spotting I had, I felt safe. I imagined him always sitting in that chair warding off evil spirits. Who knows.

Hannah got it the worse one night. She was spending the night with her now two kids. We had a large sofa sectional in the downstairs living room and part of it folded out into a full-size sleeper bed. Hannah was sleeping in the sleeper bed and Veronica, being 4 years old now, was sleeping on the other end of the couch. Hannah had a new baby and he was sleeping in a bassinette next to the bed. She was awoken to hearing a growling noise. Not like a dog growling, but a demonic growl. At first, she thought she was still sleeping, but after lifting her head from the pillow she knew she was awake. She looked over at Veronica and she was fast asleep. The growl happened again with a demonic gurgling noise. As it gurgled, she felt from the arch of her back, from the sleeper bed beneath her, a head and shoulder rise as it was growling. Whatever it was, felt like it was on all fours directly below her rising its head and shoulders up into her back. She said she literally froze... She couldn’t move, even if she wanted to. Her body literally held her captive. She looked over at the bassinette and prayed to God the baby not wake up crying because she couldn’t move. She thinks the terror caused her to pass out because the next thing she remembers was it was morning and the baby starting to cry for his morning bottle. Her paralyzed body had now full mobility and the first thing she did when her feet hit the floor, feeling safe by the morning sun shining in, is look directly under the sofa sleeper to find nothing there.

This story was probably the most disturbing event, of all the hauntings, for all of us at that point. Secretly, my sister and I arranged a time to play the Ouija board once more to talk to Nace and find out what other spirits are in this house, and if there is evil, as we all suspected.

There was a lot of activity that happened in my mom and dad’s bedroom closet. At night, boxes would randomly fall off the shelves, usually waking my parents to see what happened. Boxes my mom knew were secure. One night her wedding picture fell off the wall for no reason at all. So my sister and I decided this would be a good place to play the Oujia Board. We didn’t actually go inside the master closet, but we did open the door and play in front of it in my parents sitting room section.

It didn’t take long until a spirit joined us moving the oracle. Again, my sister’s face went pale and her eyes grew large of excitement and fear, so I knew she wasn’t moving the oracle, and I knew it wasn’t me, so we indeed had a spirit. We asked if it was Nace and the oracle said NO. We asked who we were speaking to and the oracle spelled P E R C Y. Percy.

Are you a boy?
YES
We talked to Nace before. Is he here?
NO
We now knew there were 2 spirits in the house. Nace and now this Percy. We

asked Percy how many spirits were in the house. 1 7.

WHAT? 17 spirits?
YES
Who are you? This was when things got scary. Percy spelled the words

PROTECTING YOU.
My sister and I froze. Holy shit. What is going on here. We then asked are

there evil spirits in this house? And the oracle went to YES. We asked if Percy was a good spirit and the oracle said YES. We asked where Nace was and it spelled out NOT HERE. When then asked if Nace was a good spirit and the oracle, went faster than we had even seen it, immediately slide to NO.

WOAH. We froze again. Not knowing... not hearing... the garage door had opened and a car pulled in. We were too focused on this conversation. The oracle then stopped moving. No! Not again, don’t go Percy. We kept asking for him to come back, then it moved again about 2 minutes later.

Percy is that you? The oracle shot to NO. Nace? NO.

At this time, my mom walked into her room catching us in the act of using the Ouija board right in front of her closet. Her jaw dropped. I can’t remember if it was me or if it was my sister, but one of us said, “mom, we’re talking to one of the spirits in this house.”

And that was it. My mom yelled, in a very authoritative voice, “in the name of Jesus I rebuke you.” The oracle started spinning out of control taking my sister’s and my finger’s with it. It spun in circles crazily. “In the name of Jesus, I command you to get out of this house!” She screamed. The oracle spun faster and faster and FLEW off the board across the room.

My sister and my jaws dropped and we looked at my mom and said “What did you do?!” And she hissed at us “What are you doing? You’re playing with evil!” She bent down, packed up that Ouija board and took it outside to the trash.

She commanded that board to never enter this house again. And it never did. We never played it again, and to this day I haven’t touched a board. Seeing is believing and what we saw was real and how it responded to Jesus’s name proved to us there was definitely evil spirits in this home. I later found out that evil spirits lie all the time... so who knows if Nace and Percy were even their names, or even telling the truth. But I felt peace with Percy when we spoke to him. I didn’t feel the same peace with Nace, so I do believe Percy was a good spirit and protecting us from the others. Sometimes I even wonder if the man I saw, sitting in the chair at the foot of my bed that I called my guardian angel, was Percy. Who knows.

We were utterly defeated at this point. One Saturday afternoon I was in the main bathroom, that was across my bedroom, getting ready and I felt this person step behind me. I can see directly into the vanity mirror, so I knew there was no one behind me that was human. And then this cloud of negativity just fell upon me. It was overwhelming. It was evil. I left the house that day and I called my mom at work and said I am not coming back home until the house is blessed again. That night the pastor came back and blessed the house including all the doors and windows. It went away for about 6 months, then returned. We just learned to live with it.

One evening, my mom received a call from my grandma, and she asked if our hauntings were still happening. She informed her they were, and my grandma told my mom she had a dream, and in that dream, it revealed to her how to get rid of the

spirits, permanently. My mom was all ears and my grandma told her what her dream revealed to her. My mom did it. She purchased a wide ribbon from the craft store. This ribbon was about 2 feet long and my mom super glued toothpicks in the shapes of crosses onto the ribbon. Up and down filled the ribbon. There was a ribbon posted on the back kitchen door and a ribbon posted on the front door. Ten toothpick crosses on each ribbon. It’s important to note that the back kitchen door was rarely used in the winter as it exited to the backyard, if it was used at all. It was February at this time, so the front door experienced way more activity than the back door. The last time the pastor had blessed the house, he had mentioned he felt most of the negative energy in the back of the house, near where the back kitchen door was. My mom said a prayer after she posted the ribbons to the doors. Within a couple days one of the crosses had fallen off the ribbon on the back kitchen door. That’s strange, my mother thought. Maybe that one wasn’t glued on that well. The next day another had fallen, then the next day another. All from the back kitchen door. The front door continued to open multiple times a day as my mom, dad, Billy, and me would come and go throughout our day. Yet not one of those crosses ever fell off the ribbon. After a week, to the day the ribbons were posted to the doors, 7 crosses, in total, had fallen off the back kitchen door’s ribbon. Seven. One for each day it was posted. Another week had passed, zero hauntings had occurred, and no more crosses had fallen. Just those first 7, the first 7 days. And we were never haunted again. It is believed that there were 7 spirits in that house and each of them was casted out by those crosses and one their way out a cross would fall. I know Percy told us there were 17 spirits in the house, but I learned spirits can lie. Yeah, can you believe that? Ghosts lie too. Although I felt Percy was a good spirit, it is possible he got it wrong. Or maybe 2-3 spirits fled at the same time resulting in one toothpick cross falling. No one really knows. But what I do know is for 3 years we were haunted regularly and after my mom did what my grandma told her to do, it all ended.

I have never been haunted again, to this day, and I thank God for that every day. There may have been good spirits in that house, but there were definitely evil spirits there. People ask me how do I know they were evil? You just do. It’s a sense that you feel. A sense of negativity and depression that falls over you like a cloud of dust, when they’re nearby. Like something sucked all the air out of the room and you’re left with a feeling of despair. Maybe it really is a sixth sense and M. Night Shalaman got it right. We really do believe whatever spirits were haunting us on Glover Street followed us to this new house as Nace said, attaching itself to our items, such as furniture. Because the house on Joshua Street was brand new, on top of what used to be farmland. I do acknowledge a lot of farm land had been ancient burial ground of Native Americans centuries ago, but the odds of moving into two haunted houses, back to back, are just too hard to believe. I feel it, deep within my gut, that the spirits from Glover Street followed us to the house on Joshua Street resulting in the hauntings of Joshua Street.

Alright, well if that didn’t give you goosebumps, I don’t know what will. There were a few parts in that story that really raised the hairs on the back of my neck. First, was the breathing on the back of his neck in that house on Glover St… Like what would you do if you were in that position? 2nd was the man staring at him while he slept. This freaked me out mainly cause have you ever woke up in the middle of the night and felt like you were being watched? It’s one of the most uneasy feelings in the world. Last, whatever was under that sleeper sofa bed that raised its head and shoulders into his sister’s back. Woah. That gave me literal goosebumps. I would freeze too! Cause if you tried to get out of the bed, what if it clawed the back of your heels. Or worse, pulled a Gage in Pet Sematary…

Anyway, I want to thank Michael Preston for his story and sharing it with us. Again, names have been changed to protect the identities of the real people involved. If you tried to look up Joshua St in Alton, IL and couldn’t find it, that’s because I changed the name of the street for this story. The real street, this story takes place on, only has about 4-5 houses on it and I didn’t want to out that street publicly to protect the current homeowners of the street, If you really want to know the name of the real street, you can send us a message on Instagram @sebastianfilmsunlimted and we’ll share with you privately. 

I looked up the address of the house, on Joshua street in this story, and it has been sold 5 times since his family moved out in 2003/2004. 5 times in 20 years. That’s seems to stick out to me. Is this house still haunted? Did the evil permanently leave after the toothpick crosses? Or did it come back after Michael and his family moved out? I guess the only we’ll ever know is if we find the previous homeowners and ask them if they experienced similar hauntings? Its just too creepy. Most houses don’t sell 5 times in 20 years.