3- October Campfire Tales
Hello, and welcome, my ghost-story lovers! This is Beyond the Veil, Paranormal Tales, and I’m your host, Becca. You can also find us in Podcast form, if you’d like me to read this story to you!
If you are new to the blog & podcast, while you should be able to pop in and enjoy any individual episode on its own, I do explain some things that make me different as I go along, here. So, you might want to hop back to Episode 1 and start there, but as always, follow your heart.
When I was last in my home state of Nebraska, back in October, visiting with others over a long weekend, I collected some spooky stories during one of our large group’s nights around the fire.
Tonight, I’m going to share a few of those campfire stories with you, so cozy up, and listen to real people's spooky stories, told in their own words. Some of these spooky stories may contain adult language. Listeners, be advised.
Names of affected parties and some personal details may be changed, to protect the privacy of the storyteller, but you have my word: All stories told here are real, to the best of my knowledge.
So, start your own fire, or dim the lights, snuggle into your favorite fuzzy blanket, and join us, here, as we take a peek at the world that lies... Beyond the Veil.
Tonight is Episode #3: October Campfire Tales
The stars peered down at us through the forest branches and turning leaves of the season, as we huddled close to our campfire, wrapped in our blankets, as we let the S’mores we just ate settle in our bellies. The air had an edge of a bite in it, and we listened to the fire crackle, its radiating heat fighting back against the chill.
Our fireside group that night consisted of 2 couples, Abe* and Willow*, Noah* and Tyra, then myself, and my cousin, Johanna. I had callously ditched my husband at our cabin earlier, as he was “dying” of an allergy attack that evening. That happens to him every year when we come out, but he always forgets to take his meds until it's too late. So I don't really feel too sorry for him.
Between us, we have a gaggle of kids. The youngest two belong to Noah and Tyra, and they sleep soundly, somehow, with drunken frivolity just outside the windows of their cabin. We chose this fire pit intentionally to be close to them, and it's a good thing, because the night before this, their 2 year old wandered outside, bleary eyed and crying for mommy and daddy. If we hadn't been right there, she could easily have wandered off into the night without anyone knowing it!
The rest of the kids were older, ranging from 11 to 18, and we trusted them to hang together and come to us if there are any problems with getting along together. S'mores gone, they grew tired of the adult conversation, and wandered off to Abe & Willow's cabin to play board games, their laughter receding into the night as they headed inside. The adults fondly watched their growing kids walk away togther, happily visiting and catching up after a year of being apart again, and a contented silence fell over the older group.
I took a sip of my blackberry vodka seltzer, and gazed into the flames as if I were a seer of old, and lost myself in their dancing movements for a moment. The others in the group each enjoyed their own adult beverages of choice, ranging from craft IPA to Budweiser (none-of-that-light-shit). The guys and my cousin Johanna chatted about the current Husker football season, while I zoned out into the fire, Tyra quietly slipped away into her cabin, and Willow stared into the fire while listening to her current podcast of choice, on her earbuds.
A strange sound suddenly called out from the darkness, and the group of us turned to look, but couldn't see anything in the shadows under the trees. It sounded to me like a hooting howler monkey, almost, and I wrinkled my brow, wondering what strange animal this might be, there, in Platte River Forest. I grew up not far from there, we still go out there at least once a year, and I'd never heard anything like it before.
It sounded to me like there were two of them, whatever they were. One hooted into the night, a second animal answered, and then they both fell silent as we humans stood there, listening.
That was when Tyra came back outside with a fresh drink, a blueberry spritzer similar to mine. She asked what it sounded like, as she'd missed the noise while checking on her little ones. I described it to her, and she smiled, saying she's heard those before, and they're owls! She couldn't remember their real name, but her brothers always called them Monkey Owls, because of their strange sound.
Johanna and I exchanged a look when Tyra said we're hearing owls, and the way she grinned, I expected she was thinking the same thing I was: Our grandmother passed away earlier that year, and she'd always loved owls. And Jo's mother, my aunt, who passed away about 25 years ago, had loved them too. I smiled, thinking the two of them were likely watching us in owl form, silent, from the trees overhead.
The weird noise mystery solved, kids gone, and the full group present at last, Johanna gave me a different look and a grin. I nodded my head, held up and wiggled my audio recorder at her, signaling I was ready when she was.
Jo had been bursting for weeks to tell me her scary story. She and I were chatting online about my new spooky blog & podcast ventures, and I had asked her if she had any stories to share with me, for it. She said she did have one, but we agreed to share it by the fire on this visit, and hopefully pick up some extra stories for me while we were there, if anyone else had anything spooky to share.
So it was no surprise to me when Jo leaned in toward the fire and said suddenly, “Becca is asking for stories... if you’ve ever had paranormal activity in your life. So I have one good story, and I’m gonna start. She’s gonna tape record it,” she nodded in my direction.
Brows around the fire furrowed, and I clarified, “If you’re okay with your story going on a blog, I’ll change your names. Or if you don’t want me to publish it, just let me know.” I held up the audio recorder for them to see, turned it on, and the red light glowed. I set it down on the picnic table, where it was visible to all.
“Are you sharing the recording, because I hate my speaking voice,” Tyra asked, worried, and she made a face.
I smiled reassuringly, “Oh, no, I’m transcribing the recordings for a blog, and then the plan is to read it aloud for a podcast. But, all of it will be done with the names changed. I’ll only publish what I have permission to share.” Faces relaxed, so I turned to my cousin with a wicked grin, and asked, “So what’s yours, Johanna? ‘Cause you said you had a good one!”
Willow shook her head firmly, muttering something about 'not doing spooky', and she popped her earbuds back in and turned the volume up on her show, to drown us out. I wasn't offended in the slightest, and made a mental note to tell her when we were done. This spooky stuff isn't everybody's cup of tea!
Johanna took a deep breath, thinking, and finally began, “It was about, well, 25 years ago. I think I was pregnant with my oldest kid. I would have been, um, 18?” She thought back, nodded, then continued.
“And, um, my ex-husband and I would drive around Omaha at night, and just find things to do. In fact, we would come out here and go to the tower, and run up and down the tower. He was just a night owl, so we were always doin’ stuff at night.
“Well, unbeknowns to most people, at 90th and Dodge Streets, where there is an American National Bank, and also a plastic surgeon’s office… Um, Aesthetic Surgical Images. Well, behind that building, Aesthetic Surgical Images, there used to be an old house that was condemned,” she glanced at me, and I nodded, encouragingly.
Johanna said, “But nobody ever really paid attention because that was such a busy corner? You didn’t really go back there. It was like, you could park in the parking lot of the bank and shine your headlights on this old house,” She looked around the group and we sat, nodding along.
“There’s no front door,” she continued, “There’s no windows. They’ve all been broken out, and when you shine your headlights on the house, you can see into the rooms, and you can see that there’s like, graffiti paint,” She shook her head, brow furrowed, picturing it in her mind.
“And there were different things all over the house to where you know that people have been there and done different things... So, I was always a little scared of stuff like that, no matter what I had known or seen. Was just always naturally scared.
“But him and his friends would go into this house, and we went there quite a few times, just cuz we were bored. And they were always on drugs, but- um...” She trailed off, embarrassed, but quickly recovered. “But I wasn’t. I was pregnant, and that’s how this is so burned into my mind. I know I wasn’t on drugs. I was pregnant, so…” Johanna shrugged and laughed.
“Mmhmm,” I nodded, leaning forward to listen.
“We went to this house and I would sit, in the car, and turn on the headlights. Well, there was probably three of them and they would always get out and go inside, and they had their way through the house. They’d go into each bedroom, and there was a way out into the roof of the detached garage. It was like a two story with a two car garage on the side,” Johanna explained.
“I can’t remember if you could get off from there, if it was like, a raised grade or not. I want to say you had to climb back in to the house and come out of the house. Well, one of the times, I was sittin’ there, and they all went inside and they, like, disappeared. I didn’t see ‘em, usually I’d see ‘em through the windows and stuff, and they were just nowhere.” She stared into the flames for a moment, thinking.
Abe stirred the fire, shuffling through the leaves to add more wood to the fire. The wood crackled as it caught, and the familiar scent of wood smoke wafted out, soaking into my big black fleece poncho. The fire grew and pushed back on the chill, but I shivered despite the growing heat.
“I don’t know if my mind was playing tricks on me, but it was kinda like my brain started telling myself a story?” Johanna looked my way and I nodded, knowing exactly what she meant. “And I could visualize, all of a sudden, a young girl... poke her head around the side of the front door and look out.”
A shiver ran down my spine as Johanna continued, miming the child’s actions, “Like she was looking for something. And then, um, she didn’t see anything and she stepped out, and looked around really fast, and then she ran around the side of the house to the back.”
The listeners nodded along, eyes wide. “And then I could see a boy, a child, about the same age, I would say, and he sorta did the same things. Looked, stepped out, looked, and then ran. And then a man appeared,” Johanna continued, miming the boy’s scared actions, then the man’s drawn-up posture.
“Uh-uh,” I shook my head, goosebumps prickling my skin.
“And he did not make me feel good, at all,” Johanna shook her head firmly. “And he was carrying something. I want to say it was an axe, but that’s so fucking cliche, that I don’t want to say that…”
“Mm-mmm,” I said, shaking my head, “But...”
“But he was carryin’ something. And he did not look. He just stepped his ass out, and he walked around the side of the house,” Johanna mimed the man’s movements, shoulders back, steps deliberate. She shook her head, took a drink of her beer, and said, “I was so creeped out, I didn’t know where they were, where anybody was, and I’m visualizing this in my head, and I’m like-”
Tyra interrupted to ask, “So you’re seeing, like, are you believing what you’re seeing?”
“Kind-of, but I’m not really. Like- I wouldn’t let myself believe what I was seeing,” Johanna answered.
“But they looked like regular people?” I asked, brow furrowing.
“I would say it was, to me, yeah. But I didn’t see it,” She squinted at us, meaningfully, and added, “I could just... see it in my head.”
Tyra clarified, “So, in your mind, you’re not like, 'I should call the cops'? In your mind...?”
“No, no, no. I know- I knew in my head it was past,” Johanna answered, and Tyra nodded. “I knew that it was, like, I want to say my mind’s eye is how I could see it…?”
“Almost like a dream?” I asked.
“Kind-of,” Johanna nodded. “Yeah.”
“Were you tired?” Tyra asked, eyes narrowing.
“I was a little tired,” Johanna nodded. “Cuz it was late, and we were always out really late, and I was pregnant… And yes, I was tired. But we had been there so many times before, and it always gave me an eerie feeling, but I could never understand why.
“But that time, this, all this happened, I started flashin’ the lights, and honkin’ the horn. I’m like, ‘You guys gotta get out here, this is crazy, I’m seein’ shit in my head, what the hell?’ Ya know?” Johanna looked around at the group as a chill ran down my spine, and I shivered suddenly.
“So,” Johanna continued, heavily, “Let’s fast forward about… I’d say six months. And I was telling,” she laughed, “Every time I went somewhere, I would tell anybody that would listen. And somebody may have been fucking with me, I don’t know, but some girl stopped me midway through my story, and told me that a father killed their kids. In that house.”
Goosebumps covered my arms and both Tyra and I sighed sadly in unison.
Johanna nodded, “And I don’t know if they were just messing with me just because I sounded like a freak, and I’m seeing ghosts, and they’re like, ‘Hah, this girl’s stupid, I’m gonna get her.’”
“No, that’s mean!” I said, brow furrowed, and shook my head. “That’s a really mean joke if that’s a joke.”
“Or if they really heard that, and that’s why the house was condemned, and it was waiting to get torn down because of evidence, and all kinds of different things,” Johanna shrugged.
“Or if nobody would buy it because of activity,” I added, and Johanna nodded.
“Well if it’s a commercial area...” Tyra said, her brow furrowing as she tried to think past her vodka spritzer.
“Yeah, that’s what’s so weird! It's this house in the middle of a commercial lot!” Johanna nodded.
“Well, I wonder too, though, is it developed now?” Tyra asked.
“Yes,” Johanna replied.
“The land might have been bought, and they just couldn’t tear it down because it wasn’t ready for development,” Tyra mused.
“Right. Well, Surgical Images was always there, and here’s the freaky thing- Is that five years later, I get a job at this place,” Johanna nodded. “In the same lot as this house, but this house is now gone.
“It’s all a beautiful grassy area back behind- and I didn’t feel anything when I pulled in there. I remembered it though. I was like, “OH! Oh my god, I remember that house was there.’ But the, um, office, the plastic surgeon’s office used to be an old house. And I’m wondering if, like, the house behind it was like the old servant’s house? So think, 90th and Dodge was a predominantly wealthy area,” Johanna nodded.
“Mmhmm,” I nodded, picturing that part of my old home town, filled with beautiful older houses.
“Have you ever tried to look up to see if the the stories-?” Tyra searched for the right words to finish her thought.
Johanna answered, “I got distracted, and then, no, I just keep forgetting. And in fact, I forgot all about this story until Becca asked me. I haven’t told this story for like over 10 or 15 years.”
“I wonder how you could go about looking that up,” Tyra mused, “If you know it was before 25 years ago…”
“I would look at property records,” I said. “Who bought the house? Who owns it now? What was the business, or do you remember, like-” My eyes narrow, feeling like Johanna gave the name earlier, but my shitty memory won’t recall the information.
“Aesthetic Surgical Images, cuz I worked there,” Johanna laughed.
“It’s still there?” I asked.
“It’s still there,” Johanna confirmed.
“I should be able to look up that address for that-” I thought aloud.
“8901 West Dodge Road, I remember numbers for some reason, I don’t know,” Johanna shrugged and laughed, “Kind-of a savant.” I laughed and I mused over how to look into the history of this property once I got home.
Johanna stared into the fire for a while, and then added, “I can still see that house in my head. I can see- and it had to have been, like, the 50’s, because the last refrigerator was in the kitchen. And the basement was dirt. I remember the guys tellin’ me they started halfway down into the basement and couldn’t make it. They had to come back up because it was way too scary,” Johanna raised her eyebrows.
“Ooooh,” I breathed, darkly. That basement must have just boiled with negative energy, if the guys who were typically oblivious to the vibes there were feeling it.
Johanna shook her head and said seriously, “So these kids came out of the doorway on the same side of where the basement door was, as if they had come out of the basement…. and I just got the chills.” She shuddered, and shrugged her coat higher up around her neck, reflexively.
Tyra asked, “You said they were wearing, like, period clothes? So you could tell...” I nod, following her line of thinking: What were these kids wearing? When were they from?
“Yeah, they were wearing, well, it was really grungy, like they were mistreated, or maybe poor... neglected,” Johanna said, brow furrowing.
“Or farm kids?” Tyra wondered.
Johanna shook her head, “A little farm, but no! It was more... I did not get the inkling of farm at all. I got, poor city kids, is the feeling I got? Like their dad was an alcoholic and took his life’s, um, miseries, out on them. That’s the inkling that I got, when I saw them and how scared they got. Like- like he tortured and beat them,” Johanna shook her head, and brows around the fire furrowed. “Yeah, they were just scared to death, out of their minds,” Johanna sighed.
“Fair,” I nodded.
“And first was the girl... And I can still see that girl’s face in my head. I swear. The boy not so much, but that girl, I can see,” Johanna said soberly, and trailed off, staring into the fire again. After a long moment, she asked brightly, “So is that a good one for your blog?”
“It’s an interesting one for sure, yeah,” I nodded, appreciative for the story, but also still sad for the terror those poor kids must have lived through.
Johanna grinned, happy to have helped, and she looked around the group, hoping for someone else to share their own story, too. She didn't have to wait long.
Tyra chimed in brightly, “I’ve got a much less dark one. It’s not really…” She looked my way, suddenly worried, and asked, “Do they have to be ghost stories, or…?”
I grinned and shook my head, “No, no, no, anything out-of-the-normal is fine. I would be down with pretty much anything-” I nodded and smiled warmly.
Tyra breathed a sigh of relief, and continued, “Noah, remember when we went down to take pictures? After we got our camera and I was taking that class? And I, we went to this abandoned farm that’s like, down the street from where my-”
“Spooky walk?” Noah asked, tilting his head to the side.
Tyra nodded deeply, “Yeah. So there’s this legit, like, just terrifying farmhouse. They could just use this building right now for a horror movie. They don’t have to do anything. It’s like, overgrown, it’s abandoned. Long abandoned. There are abandoned cars in the garage… like, from the 50’s?”
“Sounds awesome,” Johanna nodded.
Tyra continued, nodding, “Yeah. So the guy who owned the land, that was his. His son manages the land now because he’s in his 90’s. So, he moved into a nursing home, and they just like, let the house go?
“So, all the windows were busted out… Like, the porch was, like, collapsing, because it was wood and totally rotted... We posted some photos on Instagram. So, anyway, we were there because we got permission that we could just go take, like, spooky photos of it?
“So we went, and, like, oh my gosh, this place was just bananas. Everything’s deserted, and we’re in the middle of nowhere. Like, this is as rural as you can get in Missouri. And Missouri’s kinda like...” She hesitated, then said, “Backwards...” The three of us laughed. “I’m just like, ‘Oh my gosh, I hope there’s noone doing meth here or something,’” Tyra laughed.
“Cooking meth…” Johanna nodded, and laughed.
“It’s the meth capital of the world! It's pretty terrible,” Tyra said, shaking her head. “Yeah, so anyway, we’re walking around this house, and we’re taking spooky pictures, and like- This place is huge. It’s two or three stories tall, but it’s not very deep?
“So, we’re standing in the front yard, and he’s like, crouched way down, taking these beautiful photos,” Tyra gazed at her husband, smiling. “And I’m looking through the front windows of, like, the front room, and they’re busted out. And then you can see all the way into the back of the house?” Tyra said, and I nodded.
She continued, “And so I’m, like, looking in there, and I was like, ‘Wow! It’s not that… I dunno, big, as it looks?’” She nodded, then gasped, suddenly serious, “And then I saw something move in it.”
“Oh, God,” I gasped.
“And I was just like,” Tyra made a panicked face and breathed out forcefully. She nodded at her husband, “He was with me, and I remember saying I felt my heart just STOPPED. I was like, ‘There’s something in there.’ It is dead quiet in there. Like, we’ve been there, what, an hour at this point?” She turned to her husband to confirm. He nodded deeply, twice. “And… it was the second time we’d gone there that day, because the sun was setting,” Tyra looked to Noah to confirm and he nodded again.
“It was really cool, looking at the front of the house, you could see, like, all of the trees, like the outlines of all of them,” Tyra said. “It was just gorgeous. So anyway, I see movement,” She said, eyes wide. “And my heart just like,” She pressed her hand to her chest, eyes even wider, and she breathed, “Just stopped. And I remember just freezing,” She paused, looking around the glowing fire at the group.
“Mmhmm,” I nodded, totally understanding.
“Because my mind is trying to process, like, what was that?” Tyra said, pausing again for a long moment... “It was a curtain, that was blowing,” She said, finally, eyes wide.
“Uh-huh, uh-huh,” I laughed, nodding along appreciatively.
“But I tell you, that took, minutes off my life,” She finished and just grinned at us, as the rest of us laughed heartily. “That’s all it was,” Tyra grinned, “That’s the end of the story,” She shrugged, but then continued.
“This property was huge. We took a Polaris up to it. And then we left the Polaris in the driveway. And we were a long way… He’s basically on the ground, laying down, taking pictures, and it was like, there’s something in there. In my mind, in that split second before I figured out, like, I’m trying to figure out, like, can we leave? Would we make it?” Tyra continued, worry from that moment shining through, “Would anyone hear anything?”
“Yeah! Your mind goes through so many things, when you’re, like, frightened for your life like that,” I said.
“The Polaris can only go so fast,” Johanna chuckled, knowingly.
“Mmhmm,” Tyra smiled and nodded as she flicked through her phone, “Here’s what it looks like. Here, I’ll pull it up,” Tyra said, handing off her phone, showing a photo of an old two story farmhouse, with 2 red brick chimneys. Its whitewashing was flaking off, the roof looked leaky, and a row of trees towered behind it, framing it perfectly. I grinned at the photo, totally understanding why Tyra was automatically spooked out while there.
“Oooh, I loooove it!” Johanna gasped.
“That’s what it looks like!” Tyra grinned. “Well, that night when we were there, anyway. It looks way worse now because that was, that was, like, three years ago?” Tyra turned to her husband to confirm.
“Yeah, it does. It looks a lot worse,” Noah agreed. “We should go back!” He grinned, thinking of the next round of photos at this spooky place.
“Yeah... Well, you can’t even see the house almost anymore. It’s literally all grown over,” Tyra said.
“Can I see the photo?” Noah asked, reaching for her phone, which she opened and handed to him.
“Yeah, the house looks so much worse now,” Tyra said to Noah. “You drive by it on the road now and it’s like, you can’t even tell there’s a house in there.
The conversation trailed off for a bit, and I suddenly remembered a vague story told years ago. I pointed at Tyra, brow furrowed, and said, “You said at one point that Aurora* said something that, like, creeped you out-”
Tyra gasped, nodding, eyes going wide, “Oh my gosh-”
“Ooh, yeah, tell that one! Set us into the setting, “ Johanna prompted.
“Well, we were in my daughter’s room!” Tyra said, shaking her head. “I mean, she’s got, a really nice little bedroom. She was probably,” Tyra hesitated, thinking, “Three at the time? Noah’s out of town, I remember this… So I’m tucking her into bed, and it’s daylight. I think it’s probably summer, and she would go to bed at, probably 7, or maybe 8?
“So, it’s daylight, and she’s in her room, and she’s like- I mean, it’s just routine. Nothing feels weird or anything like that,” Her eyes glazed over a bit as she thought back, seeing her older daughter’s bedroom of the past. “So I’m tucking her into bed, and I haven’t closed her windows yet, because she’s got, like, blackout windows?” Tyra continued.
“So, we’re talking, I think I might have been reading her a book, or singing her a song, because she’s laying in her bed, and the way her room is like, is if...” Tyra grabbed the wagonload of logs for the fire and pulled it over close to her. “If this box is her room, okay? There’s, like, her bed kinda comes along this wall,” She gestured to the right-side wall of the wagon, “And there’s a window right here,” She gestured along the upper wagon wall. “And there’s, like, a big wall,” She gestured along the left wall. “A big wall with a door over here,” She gestured at the lower wagon wall. “And then, so, anyway, I’m sitting at the foot of the bed, and she’s facing me, and like, the window’s behind me?”
“So that’s where we are. It’s daylight out, we don’t have a bad neighborhood, I’m not worried about our neighbors. In fact, our neighbor’s house is like, almost right on top of us. We’ve got a very narrow sidewalk, and then a fence, and then they’ve got probably 8 feet, and then it’s their house which is taller than us,” Tyra trailed off, thinking, then shook the thought away.
“Anyway,” She continued, “And so we’re talking and she’s facing me, and she’s like, ‘Mom, who’s that lady?’ And I was like, ‘What lady?’ And she said, ‘The lady in the window.’ And I look outside behind me, like I said, cuz it’s daylight, and the window’s open, and I’m like, ‘Who’s lookin’ in my daughter’s room?’” Tyra said, the last bit spoken in a worried internal voice.
“Right?!” Johanna exclaimed, and took another swig of her drink.
“Yeah, like, I’m not expecting anyone. And I even look at, like, is there someone in the neighbor’s window? Because,” She gestured vaguely at where their house would be, compared to the wood wagon bedroom model.
“Yeah, yeah. Like, what window are you looking at?” I nodded.
“Yeah, maybe they’re looking out their window, at something over our roof,” Tyra reasoned. “Yeah, there’s no one in the window, but she told me, she’s like, ‘There’s a lady in the window!’ I was just like, ‘Honey, I don’t see her,’ and I shut the window,” Tyra bared her teeth in a worried grimace, eyes wide, brow furrowed.
“And... it’s bedtime!” I concluded with a worried laugh.
“Sweet dreams! There’s nobody there!” Johanna said, a little too sweetly.
I asked, “Has she said anything about it since then at all? Any random comments?”
“No, uh, no. But I remember, like, on Facebook, some of my friends had said, “If your kids see anything, you’re not supposed to tell them there’s nothing there,” Tyra shakes her head. “You’re just supposed to calmly say, like, ‘We’ll figure it out later,’ just kinda like-” Tyra trailed off.
“Redirect?” I finished for her.
“Yeah,” Tyra nodded. “My instinct was like, ‘It’s nothing, it’s fine,’ and then I just, like, went to Facebook cuz I was like, ‘I’m alone!!’” Tyra said the last in a deeply worried voice.
I nodded, “I remember reading it and being like, ‘Oh my gosh! Aaah!’ That would have been scary! I don't know what I would have done!”
“Well, they say that kids are... I guess they’re just more…” Tyra searched for the right word, “I guess less trained? They don’t understand things that are happening around them…” She trailed off for a moment, then continued suddenly, “But I remember, like, if that’s what we’re talking about, I remember, on the radio and I was listening and people were calling in, ‘What’s the creepiest thing that’s ever happened to you?’”
“Yeaaaaah,” Johanna nodded, grinning, and took another swig from her long-necked bottle.
“This lady called in to say that she was babysitting this little girl, and it was the same thing. Like, she’s putting her to bed,” Tyra said. “She’s like, in one room of the house and she needs to cross the hallway to get to the child’s room. So she’s carrying the child, going to her room, and like, down the hallway, side-eyed, she sees someone there. But her mind immediately blocks it out, and is like, ‘There’s no one here, I’m home alone,’ so it was one of those things,” Tyra said.
“Yeah, like, you disregard,” I nodded, “Mmhmm.”
“It happens to you all the time. So, anyway, she keeps walking, and she’s holding the child, and when they get to the child’s room they said, ‘Who was that in the hallway?’” Tyra’s eyebrows shot up.
“Oh my god,” I breathed.
Tyra’s grin deepened, “Yeah! Yeah, so, the person babysitting had to say... It was the same thing. She was just like, ‘I just had to react, and say,’ like- I don’t remember what she said the response was, but she was like, ‘And I didn’t babysit in that house again after that!’” Tyra nodded, and we all laughed.
The conversation meandered from there into talk of different podcasts we love, and… different types of spooky tales, like… creepy neighbor guys trying your door, late at night while your roommate is up studying, and you’re fast asleep… This led to advice, like the proper way to choke up on an aluminum baseball bat so it can’t be used against you in a fight…
Then, before long, our group of teens and tweens crashed the fire, and they brought a loud social deduction game with them. That fireside game carried on until the lack of sleep won out, and the tired kids began to bicker. We bid our goodnights to the others by the fire, and Johanna and I hoofed it, with all of our kids in tow, back around the lake to our shared cabin, carefully stepping in the darkness, by the light of our flashlight apps.
Johanna and I chatted about the monkey owls, on the way back, and how it seemed almost like her mother and our grandmother might have been stopping by, enjoying our shared time together. We linked arms and laughed as we walked, and our kids wandered ahead of us on the trail.
When we got back to the cabin, I found a moth inside that not only let me come close to it... It climbed on my hand, and then wouldn't leave me, once I took it outside. It wouldn't leave until I thanked it for coming, like I do with ghostly spirits who come to call, and it finally climbed off my finger and onto the patio railing. I wondered who that might be, as I stepped back inside and closed the door for the night, but was too tired to do a dowsing session to find out.
In the morning, on our walk back to the other cabins, I found not one, but three brown and white owl feathers. I'm always finding feathers to keep, but because of our talk, I gave one to Johanna, and brought the other two home with me.
Once my family returned home after the weekend visit, I did look into the property Johanna mentioned during her story. It turns out her memory of the address was wrong by one digit: Aesthetic Surgical Images is at 8900 W Dodge Rd, in Omaha.
The house is not visible on the online maps, and near where it stood, you can now see what looks like a big cement slab. I assumed the slab was the old foundation of the house, at first.
Johanna and I chatted about the location of the home, and she corrected my assumption that the slab is where the house once stood. The attached photo (on the blog) shows her notation of where the house actually was, if her memory is correct.
We looked back in time on the property records for that lot where the house stood, but it only shows back as far as 1999. It looks like the American National Bank purchased that section of the land, as well as a piece of land to the North of the bank lot.
The incident where Johanna saw the children happened in 1994, and obviously if the house was from the 1950s, it would have been standing there, empty, for years before that, after the incident.
I emailed the county’s Property Records Office asking if they have any older information on the property, but I haven’t heard back from them at all, yet. I’m hoping they can provide a name to add clarity to my searching, but it’s not looking promising.
Johanna and I have been searching through the Omaha World Herald’s online archives, but haven’t found what we need yet. I realized, though, so far, we’ve been looking for a story of murder or children found dead… But this made me realize we are assuming the man was caught.
If the father got away with it, they’d just have looked like another family that ran off and left their home abandoned. But then, there’s the part where that girl commented and said the dad killed the kids, so… Maybe I just need to keep hunting. Maybe the fridge was old. Things back then were meant to last, after all.
So, I guess my search for proof of what happened at that house so many years ago continues. I’ll let you all know if I find anything!
Thank you all so much for joining me! If you have a Paranormal story of your own to share, email me your story, and I’ll read them here! Send your stories to: BeyondTheVeilParanormalTales@gmail.com
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I think that about wraps it up, for tonight! Y’all stay cozy beneath those blankets, keep your feet tucked in, and watch for those moving shadows out the corner of your eye. Who is the lady in the window...?
Until next time, this has been Beyond the Veil, Paranormal Tales. I’m your host, Becca. Sleep tight!
*The names in this story have been changed to protect privacy. All other details of the stories remain true to fact.