Sandy J. Hartwick

All the latest from author, Sandy J. Hartwick

Jagged Blackness

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Jagged Blackness

J. had two experiences with shadow people. The first one happened at his girlfriend’s new apartment. It was night and she had a large clock that faintly illuminated her room. Adjoining the bedroom was a bath and the clock did not shed any light on it–it was  black.

J. awoke with the terrible feeling of being watched. There was no one in the bedroom, but he felt someone was staring out at him from the bathroom. The bathroom doorway was inky black, an unnatural black and the feeling of a bad presence grew.

J. felt certain someone was there, so certain that he drew his gun and yelled at the shadow, “Who are you? What do you want?”

His girlfriend woke up and turned the lights on. There was nothing there.

The second experience was worse. J.’s father and brother had taken him to a shooting school as a gift for his bachelor’s party.  At the hotel, J. chose the pull-out sofa as his bed. They all went to bed, but left the hallway light on.

J. slept and awoke in the middle of the night. He looked around the room towards his right and the television. Everything was normal. He looked back to his left and there looming above him was an enormous shadow person. It was so huge and impossibly black.

He could see its legs and arms, but there was no head, only jagged blackness. J. was frozen and couldn’t move. He screamed and screamed.

His brother and father ran into the room guns in hand, thinking that he was being murdered. J. said he saw his brother and father run through the apparition before it faded away. 

 

 

 

 

Photo by Elti Meshau on Unsplash

” J. was frozen and couldn’t move. He screamed and screamed.”

 

Knockers and Shakers

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Photo by Neven Krcmarek on Unsplash

Knockers and Shakers

M. was about 11 years old when the first scare happened. It was summer and her mom had let her invite her good friend over to spend the night. It was a warm summer night, but the girls slept in sleeping bags on cots. In the high desert, mornings could be on the cool side even in the summer.

The girls fell asleep with stars overhead and the sound of water bubbling in the ditch next to them. M. and her friend were shaken awake. Their cots were being violently moved. At first M. thought it was her older sister playing a trick on them, but when they turned the flashlight on they could see she was across the yard in her sleeping bag sound asleep. They looked all around and under the cots. Nothing. The girls had a hard time falling back asleep; it didn’t help that M. lived next to the cemetery. They settled in and the shaking began again. The flashlight was dropped and the girls made enough noise that M.’s mom called from the house for them to, “Shut up!” M. summoned enough courage to find the flashlight and again there was nothing. The shaking continued on and on and somehow the girls fell asleep! The next morning there was a large impression in the grass at the foot of the cots where something had been lurking.

M.’s second story happened later when she was about 14 . It was a windy night and the shrubs against the house were making their creaky noises. Her father had gone to bed and her mother was watching television in the living room. M. prepared for bed and as was her habit turned off the light and got into bed and under the covers as quickly as possible, trying not to think scary thoughts. M. was prone to horrid nightmares and would sometimes sleepwalk. Her parents would often find her cowering behind a piece of furniture. 

There was a knock at her door. M. got up. There was no one there. She asked her mom, but her mom was on the couch and didn’t know what she was talking about. M. went back to bed and again there was a knock at the door. Again no one. She didn’t bother to ask her mom this time. Then the real knocking began. It circled all around the room and sounded like a human hand rapping on the wall over and over again. It went on for 15-20 minutes. When I asked M. why she didn’t get her mom, M. said, “Mom never believed me.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bodie: A Real Ghost Town

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Photo by Daniel Gregoire on Unsplash

“The town is held in a state of arrested decay as a State Historic Park. The place is a natural for ghostly encounters.”

Photo by Stin-Niels Musche on Unsplash

Bodie: A Real Ghost Town

Bodie, California is located in the Basin Range of the Eastern Sierra Nevada Mountains, about 13 miles East of Highway 395 in central California.
Take U.S. Hwy. 395 to State Hwy. 270 and drive 10 miles east until the paved road ends, then continue for 3 miles on a dirt road.

Bodie was once home to over ten thousand people and had twenty seven(!) saloons. The town is held in a state of arrested decay as a State Historic Park. The place is a natural for ghostly encounters.

One worker lived in one of the old houses, and noticed that often things she had in the house were moved in the  night. Another worker that  lived in that same house had a more frightening experience. She woke up to see a young man with a baseball bat hovering over her. She said, “Don’t you dare!”. And that was the end of that

A tourist came into the visitor’s center very agitated. He said he’d seen the ghost of an old woman in a window of one of the houses. It was broad daylight. One worker looked at that window every time she went by and never saw anything, but she believes in the ghosts, because of all the stories.

 Once  a park ranger saw a man walking down a street after hours. He started walking after him to tell him the park was closed. The man disappeared before he could catch up.

There must be so many more stories. If you have one you would like to share, please let me know and I will create an update on spooky stories of Bodie.

 

 

The Miner’s Wife

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Photo courtesy of Nathan Wright.

“They liked to party and the more that they partied, the more the paranormal activity increased.”

The Miner’s Wife

There is a house in Bridgeport, California that is haunted, or at least it was back in the late 80’s.  The house is on an unassuming  street  and appears normal enough and just glancing at it would not give you any reason to expect a haunting. The story goes that many years ago,when Bodie (a mining town near Bridgeport) was booming,  a drunken miner came home, beat his wife and then threw her from the second floor window killing her.

One of my friends knew people that lived in the home during her childhood; they reported hearing someone walking up the stairs or the kitchen faucet being turned on, but no one was ever there.

Later, my friend’s brother C. and his roommate rented the house and experienced these things also. They liked to party and the more that they partied, the more the paranormal activity increased. They noticed that sometimes there were indentations on the couch as if someone was sitting there, but when anyone mentioned it, the couch would pop back into place, as if someone stood up. 

One night C. was lying in his bed when a poster he had on the wall began to shake violently, finally flying off the wall and landing on his face. Another night he was upstairs and he could hear someone coming up the stairs. He called out thinking it was his roommate. No answer. When he turned to go check, something screamed in his face. Nothing was there. He packed his things and left the next morning.

Not long after this, his roommate saw the ghost standing in the doorway of the master bathroom. She had long brown hair and was wearing a brown skirt and and a long sleeved, blue shirt.

When word got out about what he had seen an old woman named Eunice approached him and talked to him about it. Eunice had lived in Bridgeport her whole life. She had lived across the street from the house at the time of the murder, witnessed the murder and testified at the trial. When the roommate described the ghost, she said it fit the description of the murdered woman.

 

 

 

The Ranch House

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The Ranch House

Back in 1983 or ’84 my husband and another cowboy helped some married friends move from Nevada to a ranch in Oregon. The new place had a big historic ranch house on the property and that is where they stayed for the night.

After a long day of moving, my husband and the other cowboy laid out their bedrolls in one of the spare rooms, while the couple set up in the master bedroom.

Around midnight, my husband and his friend were awakened by loud talking and laughing in the kitchen. It sounded like ranch talk with two or three people talking about cattle and such. My husband shrugged it off and went back to sleep.

In the morning he asked his married friends about all the conversation that was going on around midnight. They gave him a blank look. They had slept through the night and no one else was in the house. His friend confirmed that he had heard the conversation also.

The couple was leasing the ranch from a family that didn’t get along and the grandparents of the family had passed in the house.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo courtesy of Eric Muhr

“The couple was leasing the ranch from a family that didn’t get along and the grandparents of the family had passed in the house. “

 

Time for Spooky Stories

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Photo courtesy of Toa Heftiba

Time for Spooky Stories

The sunshine is beginning to reduce its intensity and the daylight is slipping away faster each day. Trees and bushes are turning golden and the fallen leaves bounce across the roads in the breeze. Autumn is here, October is nearly half over and Halloween approaches. It seems like a good time for some spooky stories. I will start.

My first ghostly story occurred in 1978 and I was about 13. I was at a friend’s house and we were alone.  We had spent the day in her room and as the sun set and it grew dark, it was the only light on in the house. We were listening to “King Tut” by Steve Martin and when the song reached,”Now when I die,” there was a crash in the kitchen which sounded like someone had dumped the silverware out of the drawer. We were both scared, but she ventured out to look. There was no one there. She then told me that someone had died in the house long before.

My second story happened much later when I was staying with my parents, because my pregnancy was high risk and I needed to be close to a hospital. (My husband and I lived on a remote ranch at the time.).

I was staying in my childhood room, when I woke in the night. My mother had left a light on in the living room for some reason. I could hear the creak of footsteps in the hallway and I got up to see if one of my parents was up. No one was there, but I could see foot impressions in the carpet walking away from me towards the living room. I went back to bed and pulled the covers over my head thoroughly freaked out.

My last stories involve cats. Our neighbors’ dog had killed my son’s beloved cat. We were all heartbroken. In the middle of the night about a week later a cat jumped onto the foot of our bed. THERE WERE NO CATS IN THE HOUSE. I freaked out and kicked my feet all across the bottom of the bed. My husband said he had felt it too.

Another time in our living room, two of our cats were sitting on the back of a sofa, the sun warming them from the window behind them. Suddenly both cats saw something in the doorway of the room, poofed up and tore off the couch terrified. There was nothing there. My husband and I noticed that they were so scared that they had peed on the window behind them.

My stories may be tame to you, but I have had plenty of other times in old buildings or houses when I have had that creepy feeling of being watched or had the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

Do you have any ghost stories that you would like to share with me? I would like to use them in my blog. I can use your name if you want or you can remain anonymous. I plan on sharing a spooky story everyday until November 1st.