I wasn’t living in my apartment alone.
Once the roommate left, it was me and my two cats living in a duplex. Yes, I had neighbors next to me, unfortunately there was not much insulation either, so hearing noises and voices were very common. “That’s next door” or “Someone is outside." I also lived on a busy street with constant traffic.
Everything was normal for a while, and I was getting used to living without a roommate. It was a three-level duplex, with lots of space for one person and two cats. The cats loved it though. They would start in the basement and run up both sets of staircases, up and down, over and over, as fast as they could; sometimes chasing each other.
I started hearing little noises here and there, I started taking pictures randomly to see if I caught something (simply because that’s what they do on TV). As I was sitting on the living room couch, I would point the camera in the direction of the kitchen. I'm not sure why I chose to take pictures here, I suppose it was my intuition. The images I would see were in the wooden closet door of a lady wearing a white, lacey shirt that went up her neck. Her hair was shoulder length with curls. She was always holding an infant; I think the baby was wearing a dress. She would not appear in any other photos taken around the apartment, only in these closet doors. Never any negative feelings, so I felt like she was a friendly spirit.
There are a couple of unexplained things that did happen to me though. It was so long ago that I don’t remember the order in which it all happened.
One night, I crawled into bed and my cat next to me, as he always was. As I was drifting off to sleep, I had a premonition that I was about to have sleep paralysis. It was the oddest feeling, I knew if I closed my eyes, it was going to happen. It did. I felt the heaviness on my chest, the room was absolutely pitch black, no more moon beams creeping in from the blinds, 100% complete darkness! I couldn’t move, not even a twitch! I started to freak out! Then I couldn’t breathe, I tried to scream, yell, something… nope. Not a peep. For whatever reason, I received the thought to yell for my cat, I kept saying his name over and over in my head, until finally, I abruptly sat up yelling his name. This was the only bad thing that ever happened while living in this apartment.
The other two experiences were not as scary. They all took place when I went to bed, ugh! I could hear whispering coming from the hallway (I wouldn’t hear my neighbors whispering, I would hear them talking). My cat and I both reacted simultaneously to the whispers. These whispers were clear and loud and coming from my left, once I turned my head in that direction, it instantly stopped. The other incident took place at the foot of my bed. I could hear a ventilator-like noise. I opened my eyes and looked at the foot of my bed to see nothing but the wall. The noise stopped.
One day, my boyfriend noticed something about the bulkhead. From the outside, there was about 4 feet of foundation that met with the bulkhead. However, when you opened the bulkhead doors and walked down the stairs, it was a cinder block wall! I was so confused! The ceiling was not finished for whatever reason and noticed I could reach into this sealed off room from above and take pictures. I grabbed my step ladder and camera and started taking pictures. I had to be careful not to scrape my hand/arm on the nails as I reached past the exposed ceiling and into the room.
The photos showed cinder block debris, dirty old rags, and old fashion soda bottles too! I did see a small hole in the wall that faced the driveway, maybe it was an old coal shoot of sorts. Not sure why this part of the basement was closed off, some people close off parts of a building to avoid paying taxes. That is a guess, I do not know for sure.
What I do know is this closed off room in the basement is located directly below the closet in which I would take pictures and see the lady holding a baby.
The day came when I moved out of this apartment, I said good-bye to the spirits and thanked them for their company. I asked that they be nice to the new folks moving in. To this day, I still wonder about the closed off room in the basement. What really happened here? Why does the lady holding a baby only appear by the closet doors?
I remember the eerie feel of that place even though I think I’d only visited two or three times. You could feel history there for sure. Thank you for sharing Melissa! You should write about our night at the cemetery next! That was a cool picture!