5- Jonathon, and the Man on Horseback
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 blog form, at http://BeyondTheVeilParanormalTales.com, if you'd like to read instead, or read along! (You can also find us in Podcast form, if you’d like me to read these stories to you.)
If you're new to the blog and 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.
Join me here as I sit beside the crackling fire, beneath my fuzzy blankets, 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 have been 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, grab your own cup of hot cocoa, and settle in with me, as we take a peek at the world that lies... Beyond the Veil.
Tonight is Episode 5, Jonathon, & the Man on Horseback
It was Black Friday and all the people were out, shopping, grabbing coffee, or rushing home with their cars full of loot from the morning's adventures. I had slept in, greatly disliking the hubbub of such crowded places, and instead, that morning, I was meeting up for coffee and a chat, with a pair of old friends who were in town.
Jonathon, Hannah, and I all grew up in the same church, ages ago, in Nebraska. They've since left the church, in a similar way to how I did, and some online chatting showed, much to my surprise, Jonathon had some spooky stories he wanted to share with me! We agreed to do that, over coffee, when he was in town, next. That trip, he brought his wife and their son along, so I got to see all of them.
The coffee shop we decided to try out was Peak Place Coffeehouse, off Montebello Square Dr, in Colorado Springs. It was a quick hop from there to work, where I had to head after our visit, and it was a nice central location for my visitors, too. It was a big open room, with a living room kind of set up in one area, and big tables in two others. Plugs and laptops abounded, in one area, and a huge group who seemed to know each other took over the bigger table area.
I scanned the room when I first walked in, and saw my coffee dates were already there. I waved and ran over to say hello, and as those lives-old friendships tend to, we fell back into old rhythms like no time had passed at all. I hugged Hannah, and said a quiet hello to their shy son, David. Jonathon waved from his chair, and busied himself arranging his son's things on the coffee table, as drinks arrived.
David was transfixed by Spongebob on one of the big tv's on the wall, and sat waiting patiently for his food. I was grateful for his distraction, and hoped any stories told in front of him wouldn't spook him out too much! Every kid is so different with that personal spookometer, but I figure their parents know what to censor for them. If memory serves, David is spooked out by things like shark attacks and lava. Ghosts are no big deal, and totally not real. Obviously.
I dropped my coat off in an open chair around their chosen coffee table, and ran up to the drink counter. There, I ordered myself a vanilla latte, like the boring old lady I am, and told myself no, I did not need to buy a puff pastry today. Drink ordered, they said they'd bring it out shortly, so I popped back over to my chair to settle in, and admired the spread my friends had ordered.
David, who must be 8 by now, sat, enjoying a huge cinnamon roll, alongside a big cup of cocoa, topped with whipped cream, of course. He was in sugar heaven, and blissfully ignored us as we chatted, catching up.
The other two each had a cup in front of them, both white ceramic mugs with saucers, but the cups were different sizes. The bigger one had a more defined leaf than the smaller one, but they both looked beautiful.
Jonathon covertly shared pictures of what they'd found for David earlier that day, and I ooohed and ahhed over his coming gifts, knowing he would love them, once he opened them that Christmas!
My drink arrived, which helped the couple decide whose drink was whose. They had ordered a cappuccino and a latte, and the server didn't say which was which when they were brought out, so they'd been sitting in a stalemate, waiting.
But when my latte arrived, in a large white ceramic cup and saucer, that settled the issue. They traded cups, Jonathon grumbled a bit about how Hannah had sipped out of his cappuccino but he hadn't sipped out of her latte, and I giggled to myself at their old banter. Like several other couples to come out of that large church youth group, they'd known each other since they were small. It was kinda sweet, but the old history can definitely make them seem like an older grumpier couple than they really are.
Jonathon had made a comment about a large group of people who had taken over the entire front area, wondering if they're a church group come to have Bible study. Or if, perhaps, they're a white supremacist group. Or a cult. He chuckles to himself as I hide my grin, sipping my beautiful drink, ruining forever the glory that once was a pretty white latte leaf.
Settled in at last, I held my white ceramic mug in hand, grinned over at this old friend of mine, and said, “So! You have stories?”
Jonathon grinned back. “Yes! I kinda really just have, like, short little ones. I don't have any like, big, grandiose crazy ones.”
I nodded, “Well, yeah, and if there are things that happened to other people too...”
Hannah chimed in brightly, “Ooh, I know one of the ones! When you were hiking with your dad, in the mountains...”
Jonathon wrinkled his brow, thinking, and said, “I wasn't hiking with my dad when that happened. And that's not a good story. It's a non-story. Talk about a very short ancedote.” He quickly looked back to his wife, unsure, and added, “If we're thinking of the same thing.”
Hannah scowled at him, playfully, “I don't know that we are.”
“So, anyhoo,” Jonathon grinned back at me, “The one, um, like, the really specific one was... I had an instructor when I started at the Douglas County Jail in Nebraska. He had a story about something that he went through once. And it's interesting, because it was over on the really old side, the annex side, but at the same time, it wasn't like, a common occurrence that happened to multiple people kind of a thing. I've got another common occurrence that happened to multiple people,” He said, looking off into the industrial ceiling of the coffeehouse, thinking, as I nodded along.
After a moment, he nodded and continued, “Sometimes, like, with this one, 'cause it's like, the most vivid story, I don't know if it was like, necessarily supernatural, or if it was like, this guy's PTSD? Because what it was was...
“He got called to a code, where an inmate was dying, and the EMT's got there and was giving them like, CPR and stuff, and the EMT's tried to run the tube to like, get the guy breathing and whatnot... and it went down the wrong tube, and just, bile started coming up and going everywhere...” He cuts off as I groan loudly, and he nods, wincing a bit.
“And they're having to like, try to give the guy CPR at the same time and all this stuff, and he eventually croaked, and all that,” He said, shaking his head, and he took a sip of his cappuccino.
“So, this was while you were working at the jail?” Hannah asked, head cocked to the side.
“Yeah,” He nodded, and continued. “So, way later, he's doing his rounds, he claims that he heard, like, the same, like, distressed sound, coming out of the same cell. He had to go around and do checks and go around and just check doors and stuff like that,” he explained.
“And he said it sounded unusual, and it reminded him of that night, so he went over, and looked through the little like, those small...” He hesitated, “Cuz, like, the annex side had these big wooden doors on stuff, the old style locks. They hadn't upgraded or anything. So he looked through the tiny window into there, and he said he could see the guy in the room, standing up, looking at him, wide-eyed through the window of the door, with like, the bile running out of his mouth and everything. It kinda freaked him out, and he ran out.” Jonathon paused for effect, eyes wide, as he took another sip of his drink.
“Ahhhhhh!” I squirmed in my seat.
He continued, “So it's one of those... is it the whole, you know, the guy killed himself, and you know, is it one of those ghost stories in the cell?”
I nodded, “And he's still there, yeah.”
Jonathon nodded, “Or is it just that particular Sargent's trauma, from the event, and now he's back in the place of hallucinating, kind of a thing?”
“Yeah,” I said softly.
“So that was the one. And then, the common, all the time kind of occurrences, that I was saying is kind-of non-storyish... but then, it happened to all of us... In the annex side of the jail, for a long time, when they got the new side of the Douglas County Jail there upgraded, they moved all the inmates over. There were like, wings, or floors that were unoccupied. But officers still had to go up there and do a round every now and then, just to make sure there's nobody eloping, hiding out in there or some crap like that,” Jonathon nodded and took a sip of his cappuccino, which was nearly gone now.
“Right,” I nodded, betting there are loads of places to hide in those old buildings.
“So, it would happen to people all the time where you know 100% for a fact that this area is completely empty, 'cause Console knows who's going in and out, and stuff like that. And so it's not like it could even be somebody pranking somebody else or anything like that,” Jonathon said, shaking his head.
“It was like, while doing rounds, officers would hear somebody scream in there, or they would hear, like, a cell door slam. It was loud, while they were going through the place, and that happened, like, constantly. So that was the side of the jail that had been occupied for like, Douglas County's history, you know? It's like, the old wooden doors and stuff, so...” He trailed off.
I nodded, “So it's the older one.”
“So you can imagine the number of people that have offed themselves and stuff, or been killed in those areas over time,” he said, with a shake of his head.
“Altercations and stuff,” I said, nodding.
“Yeah,” He nodded, soberly, trailing off.
I took a long sip of my drink, rich foam still clinging to the rim of the cup, and savored the flavor. Hannah grinned over at her husband, amused, and asked, incredulous, “Are those your scary stories?”
He looked up defensively, “I mean, yeah, I told her they're just kinda basic. Like, ya know. Things happen that I either just... What's the word I'm looking for? Disregard, I guess?”
I nodded, understanding. “Yeah.” It is something we often do, when something strange happens. Brush it off. Assume it's something normal. Don't look too closely, because then we might have to start worrying.
Jonathon shook his head, “I never write stuff down, so I'm always terrible with telling stories because, like, I've got more shit but I don't record it, and I'm not one of those boring people that rehearses the one good story that I have in my life, kind of a thing.” We all laughed. “So recalling is hard. But like, yeah, the jail had all kinds of weird stuff though. It's just hard to remember it all,” He shrugged.
Hannah narrowed her eyes and pointed at him, “One night you came home, and I think it was when you were working the 3-11 shift, and you were really upset, and I think it might have been that night...”
“What night?” He squinted at her.
She said, “Like, something had happened. I think maybe it was the night that guy... trying to remember,” She shook her head and looked away, suddenly unsure.
“Bile guy?” I asked.
“No, I wasn't there when that happened. I heard that story in training, so no,” He looked at me and shook his head.
Hannah shook her head, “No, something had happened, and you were telling me something about, like, weird sounds and like, stuff like, kinda just like, overall, feeling weird, stuff was happening. And we were talking about like, did I think it was possible, and like, all this stuff...” She trailed off.
Jonathon nodded, “Like there's just evil in these places.”
I nodded, agreeing. Places do seem to soak up the energy of their inhabitants. I can't begin to imagine how suffocating an old jail would grow, over time. Especially that long.
“Yeah,” Hannah nodded, “And I was like, you know, it was a really shitty depressing place. Shit just kinda collects there, and... And we were still going to church at the time, so we were like, talking about it from that perspective.”
“Of course,” I nodded.
Jonathon nodded sagely, “Right? Not knowing anything. Protestants believe in it, so that's the reason why you have to be scared of it.”
I nodded deeply in agreement, “Well yes! Also, you know, my dad was there, telling you spooky stories at church, about how he had to kick things out of my place, planting ideas in your heads,” I laughed. For an impressionable young Christian person, such things were horribly interesting and scary. Demons are real, according to the elders in the church!
Jonathon laughed loudly, slapping his knee, “Your dad is the best. He's the absolute best!” I laughed, trying to imagine my father in his Sunday School room, telling the story of how he kicked Lizzie out of my old apartment. I never heard him tell the stories myself, but Jonathon and Hannah, who are younger than myself, grew up hearing that story when my dad taught their morning Bible Study.
We laughed a bit more about the old church we all grew up in, and Jonathon came back around to his talk of the jail, remembering a few additional small things that had happened there. “The one story is a good one, and then everything else is good too... it's just that vague, like, general... stuff happens.”
I squinted at him, “Like, hearing stuff in the background, but you don't know what it was?”
He shook his head, “The crazy thing about those is it wasn't in the background. It was like, in the room where you were. A cell door would be like, WHAM! And like, not-”
Hannah gasped, “Did you ever have something like that happen?”
Jonathon nodded, “And here's the thing. All the doors are closed. 'Cause that's the thing. All the doors are like, secured in the area that was closed, so you couldn't even slam the doors if you wanted to. It used to do that all the time.”
Hannah looked horrified, “Did you have... Were you ever in those areas and have something like that happen to you?”
Jonathon just looked at her, “I feel like, yeah. I feel like I heard doors slam in closed areas, at least once, yeah.”
“Maybe that was the night when you came home upset and all weirded out,” Hannah squinted, clearly needing to know what was going on that night she can only vaguely recall.
“No,” He shook his head simply.
“No?” Hannah just stared at him.
“He was just flustered? Mood was different?” I asked her, trying to help with the recall. The better we can form a memory around ourselves in our minds, the easier those details come to us and the better we can recall a thing.
She shook her head and looked at me, “I don't know. He was just upset, and we were talking. It was late, and we talked about a lot of different stuff that night, and-”
I nodded, “Well, and it got you thinking about things, obviously.”
Jonathon nodded, “Yeah.”
Hannah shook her head, “I don't remember exactly, but there was a lot of shit that happened when you were at the jail. There was a lot of bad shit.”
Jonathon thought back, almost wincing, “Yeah.”
“So,” she continued, “It kinda blurred in with all the other nights where you came home upset, and something had happened and we talked...”
“Yeah,” Jonathon nodded, conceding.
The conversation took a sudden turn, due to a Beetlejuice advertisement on the tv. Little David sat giggling at the screen, his belly fully of cocoa, his giant cinnamon roll half gone.
Jonathon joked, “You know, Becca, with all those dowsing rod sessions and tarot readings done at your house, one of these days we're going to come over and it's gonna be like Beetlejuice up in there! Its just all kinda... wigged out!” He laughed.
“Eeeh,” I shrugged, innocently. “It's kinda already a little bit like that.”
He cocked his head to the side and squinted at me, “A little bit like that?”
“Eh,” I shrugged again, laughing. “I do still have some knocking...”
“Still having stuff on the ceiling?” He asked, “With the... I remember when you were doing the video stuff for a while there...”
“The orbs?” I asked, making sure we're talking about the same thing. I was pretty sure he was referencing a PetCube camera device thing I had in my living room, to give my dogs treats while I was at work.
I kept turning my PetCube on to treat the dogs, and instead of just catching the dogs, I was seeing weird orbs on the camera. Then I noticed there were way way WAY more orbs on the camera when I was in the room, myself. I tested it by staying out of the room and sending other people in there, and recording. I went in and sat in there by myself, all sorts of things.
It was fascinating, watching light blobs come out from under my couches and pass between myself and the camera. They'd come out of the walls, down from the ceiling, up from the floor... Some would touch people and bounce off.
“Yeah,” He nodded, “Or, well, not the orbs. When you guys were doing the video thing. It was that... technique you were using? The recordings of the abnormal stuff. I think you gave up on it after a little while?”
“Oh! I don't have that camera plugged in anymore, if you're talking about the motion sensor pet camera thing,” I said. “It was when it was in night mode that it would see everything. That was a couple years ago. I was like, 'What is happening?! There can't possibly be this many things...'” I laughed.
Jonathon nodded, “Yeah.”
“The camera was freaking my kids out, so they unplugged it a little while ago. They thought I was, like, spying on them from work, or something. I never did, but, whatever,” I laughed and shrugged. “So my house has some stuff, sure, but I'm not catching videos anymore.”
Jonathon nodded, thinking hard, wondering what other stories he had to share, “Yeah, I don't know. I wish I could think of better ones.”
Hannah leaned toward him, “The story that I'm thinking of is... there was this time I thought you were hiking with your dad. Or you and your mom...?”
“Oh! Yeah!” He nodded, “So we were just dropping my dad off in the Appalachians, in order to- And my mom and I were going to-”
Hannah interrupted, “Were you going to South Carolina?”
Jonathon scowled, “Uh, maybe? I almost felt like it was my mom, she was going to... uh, what was that Christian retreat place that's in the Appalachians?”
I nodded, knowing the one he meant, but the name escaped me, “Ooh, It's like Glorieta, but on the other side of the country.” Glorieta is the sister Conference Center in New Mexico, and is the one my family traveled to more frequently.
“Yeah,” The two of them said in unison.
“Oh! I know it- Uh-” Hannah scrunched her face up, the name on the tip of her tongue.
“Ridgecrest!” Jonathon declared suddenly, a bit loudly. A few people with the laptops at the table behind us turned and looked at us as we cheered.
“Yes!” Hannah's features flooded with relief.
Jonathon laughed, “But anyway, we were dropping my dad off so that he could hike. So, Mom might have been going to Ridgecrest, and we were just dropping dad off at a starting point in the Appalachian Trail so he could hike. And we were gonna pick him up in 3 days or something?
“And this dude came along on a horse, and was like, 'Oh, yeah, ya know, it's been drought all year long, so watch out for snakes. They're really bad, and people keep gettin' bit, and they're just all over the place.' And my dad didn't take any water with him? He was just bringing a filter, 'cause it's a ton of weight to have to hike with,” Jonathon nodded seriously.
“Yes, yes it is,” I nodded. That kind of camping isn't for me at all, but I have full respect for the people who go out into the wilderness like that and just survive.
“So he just brought enough for like, a day, and he was going to replenish as he goes,” Jonathon explained. “And the guy's all like, 'Yeah, ya know, any place that you stop that has water is gonna have a ton of snakes, there, for sure.' And my mom, being the worry-wart that she is, even though she says that she's not, is like, all worked up about it.” He shook his head and rolled his eyes dramatically, and I laughed.
“But I remember,” He continued, “The thing that was really weird is this dude comes along on a horse. And we were like, on the highway, like, where there's a bunch of switchbacks winding through the Appalachian Mountains, you know? That kind of environment.” We nodded, listening.
“It's not the type of place you'd just expect to see a guy on a horse just wandering, like...” He shook his head, and I laughed. “I mean, it is Appalachia, but still, you know what I mean?”
I nodded, “Yeah,” and looked longingly at my empty cup of coffee, debating if I wanted another or not.
“And so, he gets 'em all worked up, and then he hops on this horse and starts to ride off, and my parents are talking, and my dad's getting his pack ready, and they're saying goodbye... And I can remember, I turned around and the guy had just like,” He snaps his fingers suddenly, “Vanished. He's just gone. And they're like... We're on the side of a mountain. Like, there was nowhere for him to go.” He gaped at me, at a loss for words.
I nodded deeply, “Yeah!”
“And, like, my parents didn't notice, but I was like, 'How did that guy just... disappear... all of a sudden...? It doesn't make any sense.' And so we get back in the car, and we're driving away, and my mom's just like, fretting, for like, four hours?” He shook his head.
I laughed, remembering his mother and her tendencies. “Of course.”
“And then, finally, my mom is just like, 'You know what? The Bible tells me, 'you shouldn't fret,' blah blah blah. She's like, 'Satan sent that man along just to tempt me, and get me worked up!' Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.” Jonathon reverts back to a teenager, snarking about their parents, suddenly, and I burst out laughing. It's like time travel.
He continues, “But it's the only, like, crazy Southern Baptist paranoia thing that I've ever been like, 'Well... maybe.' Cause I can remember being like, 'He did come along on the horse in the middle of nowhere, and then just vanish into thin air...'
I nodded, “Yeah.”
“And I'm like, 'You didn't notice but I noticed. He just vanished into thin air, so...'”
Brow furrowed, I said, “I'm kinda surprised she went the route of he was there to... to lead me astray, and not to... not that he was like, a guardian angel to protect your father from getting bit by the snakes. Did he get bit by snakes? Did he see any snakes?” I leaned in, suddenly curious.
Jonathon shook his head, “No... no no no... well, I'm sure he probably did see some or somethin'...” He trailed off.
“Who was the guy?” David asks suddenly. His show must have stopped being interesting. I wonder how long he's been listening.
“What?” Jonathon leans in to him.
“We don't know who he was,” Hannah said.
“He was just a man that came over and he was like, 'Hey, watch out for snakes!'” I grinned at him. Nice helper man, yeah, that's it.
“And then he left!” Hannah smiled down at her son.
Jonathon, not seeing us trying to brush off the comments for the child, shook his head, “It wasn't even like, 'Watch out for snakes.' It was more like, not so much a warning as like, 'Oh, yeah, you're screwed,' kind of an attitude.”
Hannah asked, “Like, a little bit more ominous?”
Jonathon nodded, “Yeah. I think that's the reason why my mom was like-”
Hannah cuts in, thinking back, “How old were you?”
He blows a raspberry, thinking, “Ten? Maybe. I dunno. I'm makin' that up. Maybe like, eight?”
I nodded, “It's that estimation, and that time of your life kinda like, blurs together, so it's just a big chunk...”
Jonathon nodded, “Yeah, so I wasn't six anymore, and I wasn't thirteen yet, so it's somewhere like... I'm trying to figure out what years we went to South Carolina, because we did it, like, all the time, when my dad was in the Air Force. He'd get his two weeks of leave, and that was the type of thing that we would do,” he explained.
“And then my dad retired, and we stopped going as much. He retired around the time I was ten, so,” he thought back, “It had to be before that. 'Cause, yeah. I didn't see my uncles from like, probably fifth grade until sophmore year of high school? So there was that gap, ya know?” We nodded along, waiting for his train of thought to complete its track.
“So it probably would have been when I was about ten years old. Probably.” He nodded, settling on the age.
Hannah added, “Well, and your dad's pretty careful, like... Your dad can be kinda dumb, but he's pretty careful, like-”
“Oh yeah,” Jonathon nodded seriously.
“Like, he's got that woods... knowledge,” She said. “Hiking, ya know. He knows what he's doing.”
“Yeah, definitely. He's got like, bush craft smarts,” Jonathon nodded seriously.
I nodded, thinking about how our Air Force fathers would disappear into the wilderness at times, and added, “Well, and they would have done training and stuff for what you do if you're lost in the woods, like, they do that kind of stuff with military.”
“Oh yeah,” he nodded, “Especially being a flier. He went to SERE School and all that,” He said. I looked that acronym up, later, for reference. SERE stands for Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape School. It's special forces serious business kind of stuff. His dad has been fully trained. There was no reason for his mother to worry like that.
“Oh yeah,” I nodded. “How else you survive when you crash down?” We all laughed.
Jonathon pointed to Hannah, “I think that's the one you're thinking of?”
She nodded in reply, “Yeah, I did get that one mixed up with the bear.”
He turned to me suddenly, “Yeah, so, the bear story is just when my dad and I were hiking the Appalachian Trail between my junior and my senior year. We were just hiking, on the Appalachian Trail, and we went around a switchback, after going through this valley with a bunch of like, forest, and a stream in the valley, and we came around a hill and we broke for lunch. We just broke out trail mix, and I heard this stuff crashing through the trees behind us,” He leaned in, eyes wide.
“Uh-uh!” I shook my head, leaning in to listen.
“It was- we had just seen a bunch of like, people, on the trail that looked like... They looked like locals, like this kind of thing. But, it was like, they must have been just like, from one of the towns nearby, and they just... took a side trail in? To do a day hike?
“'Cause we'd just seen a bunch of people as we'd passed through this low area, on the Appalachian Trail. So I was like, 'Oh, there's somebody coming up behind us on the trail,' or whatever. So we walk back down to the switchback, like, right down the hill, and came around the corner, and there's a black bear, just like, right there, standing on the trail?” He paused for effect.
I made a horrified face, but no noise, then casually said, “Like, oh, hey, what's up?”
Jonathon laughed, “So I eased my way back around the corner. I whispered to my dad that there was a bear right there, and he hands me his trail mix and goes, 'Give me the camera!'” Hannah and I both laughed.
We chatted a bit about how to handle different types of bear interactions, at that. I quoted what I'd read about it, “Black, attack. Brown, lay down. White, goodnight,” And explained, “It's 'cause black bears can be intimidated, brown bears will mess you up if you don't submit, and you don't wanna be caught out with a polar bear because that's how you gonna die.”
Jonathon nodded, “Grizzly bears is, 'Hey bear, go away bear.' Like you just acknowledge that you're there, and hope he leaves, because if he decides to attack you, that's when you need to submit, or you're screwed.”
I nodded, “Yeah, you're fucked anyway.”
Jonathon laughed, “Yeah, so that's brown bears. And which, Grizzly is a sub-component of brown bears. They're the ones that you just submit, 'cause if you submit, then you'll be like, 'Okay, I'm gonna mess you up, and maybe I'll leave,' whereas the black bears, they're like... They range in size, but they're really kinda just like big dogs, size-wise, most of them. You can be kinda like, 'Ooh, you don't mess with me,' and they'll go away. If you do that with a Grizzly bear, it will decide that it needs to murder you, because, yeah, what are you doing here?”
Hannah nodded, “Well, and I feel like polar bears are kinda the same way too.”
Jonathon shook his head solemnly, “No, no. Polar bears are-”
“They're just straight up mean,” I interjected.
He looked at me and nodded, “They will just straight eat you.”
Hannah nodded, “They're very territorial.”
“They will kill you 'til you're dead,” I declared, and sat back in my seat, throwing back my water.
“And they're enormous!” Jonathon exclaimed.
Hannah wrinkled her forehead, thinking, “The weird thing is, though... There's a lot of pictures of... polar bears. And dogs.”
Jonathon nodded, “Mmhmm.”
“And, it's like,” she continued, “If you have dogs around you, the bear will leave.”
He nodded. “I think it's because they're still just like, 'What are you?' Or maybe it's hundreds of years of the Inuit, the Eskimo, having dogs? If the polar bears have learned, like, context-wise, that like, somebody might chuck a spear at you if you're in a place that dogs are...?”
“Yeah, like, their ancestral memories,” I nodded, and Hannah joined in the communal head-bob.
“They always had sled dogs,” Jonathon nodded, eyebrows raised.
The conversation meandered into talk of our own dogs, and how they're all doing these days, and I complained about how I keep having to make them all upset by kicking them out of my room so I can record for my podcast.
“They're so loud! The big one will be all huffing and thwapping her tail, expecting me to shush her or make her leave, because it's happened before and she anticipates it now. And the little one will yawn loudly and stretch, constantly adjusting, jingling his collar. So I try to be, like, ready to record, kick them out, sit down, and get it done before the little one is like, scratching to get back in again. I have to be fast,” I laughed.
“So you're not up and going just yet, huh?” Jonathon asked, and I clarified the state of the podcast for him, at that time.
“Not yet, no. I'm getting a few episodes together and basically ready before I really get started. It is taking some time to find my flow and figure out how I want to do stuff, but I feel like it's all comin' together. The first story will be one you've heard before, I think. It's me telling the story of my apartment, and all of the fun things that happened there,” I grinned at them both, expectantly.
Hannah gasped, “Ooh, I'd like hearing it! You've told me that story from your perspective once before, and I like hearing it from your perspective because I grew up hearing it from your Dad's, and his...”
I gasped at that, “Ooh, what did he say?” I leaned in, with a laugh. I was never there when he was telling those stories. I'd gallivanted off to Colorado with my husband and babies by then. My dad didn't really talk about any of that stuff with me at all, after it happened. He just kinda clammed up about it. I made a mental note to bring it up and get his opinion on everything that happened, when I see him next.
Hannah cocked her head to the side and said matter-of-factly, “He said that you had had issues, and he thought there was a demon that was taking the form of a child...”
I nodded, immediately, “Of course he did.”
Hannah continued, squinting, trying to remember, “And he came over and managed it, and was really nervous and didn't really, like... And we had this whole conversation about how he didn't know what he thought about it? Because, like, there's that whole debate. Like, it doesn't mean that actually happens, or is that, you know...? Cause there's that whole Protestant skepticism of demon-possession and, like, that's more of a Catholic thing...?”
“Mmhmm,” I nodded along.
Hannah added, “But he, um, I think he believes that something was there?”
“Yeah,” Jonathon and I said at once.
Hannah's eyes narrowed, “But then he talked about the cat...”
I nodded, “I remember him being scared.”
She nodded deeply, “Yeah. Yeah, he was scared. And I remember thinking at the time, 'Why are you scared?'” She shook her head in bewilderment, as I nodded. “Because if this is something you're allowed to do, that all of these other people say that they have done...” She trailed off.
Jonathon thought for a moment, and said, “I think it's the fact that he's going into it knowing he didn't know anything. He didn't know what he was doing.”
Hannah tipped her head to the side, “And see, my thought process was that whatever you're up against is weaker than what you have on your side.”
Jonathon nodded, “That was the philosophy back then, anyway, yeah.”
Hannah shrugged, “That was my thought process, even when he was telling that story. I could see being nervous, but I wouldn't walk into it scared. I remember thinking that.”
“Right,” I nodded, thinking back, but still was seeing all of this from my current perspective, instead of the one we had back then, when it was all happening. There was no internet, really, to check for ideas on what to do, and my dad just did what he could to do.
I remember how nervous he was, and how worried I was that things wouldn't go well. We weren't into watching things like The Exorcist, or anything, so neither of us was thinking down that vein I don't think. It's easy to say things about the situation with confidence, now. Back then it was pretty scary, so I can't really blame my dad for his reactions. I am pretty curious about his perspective from that situation, though! I'll have to ask him and report back!
I realized suddenly, Hannah had asked me something but I didn't hear a word she said. I do that sometimes, and zone out thinking when I should be listening instead... I mumbled, “I'm sorry, what was that again?” and actually listened that time.
She repeated, “Where was the apartment all that happened in, anyway? Your dad was there, so you were still in Omaha, right?”
I nodded, “Oh! Yeah. That was the Shadow Ridge Apartments, off 84th St. Across the street from the Chile's they put by the Walmart. But that's not there anymore; the Walmart moved? It's those little apartments right, next to the LaVista pool.”
Jonathon asked, “The ones, like, across from the golf course there?”
I closed my eyes and tried to picture the area in my head, “Uh, the golf course?”
“There was a golf course,” He nodded, “And then there was like, a Subway or something on the very end, and there were those apartments right behind it, right? And there was the public swimming pool right there?”
“Oh, there was that park! By the public swimming pool!” Hannah nodded, pointing at Jonathon, and he nodded in reply. “Okay, yeah. We used to take his dog over into that park.”
I nodded, “Yep, that was Shadow Ridge. Funnily enough, I lived in 3 different units in that same building, not just the complex. And that one incident was the only time I ever had trouble there,” I said, eyebrows raised. “Just that one brief time period. It's part of why Ray is just super convinced that it was the one roommate that moved out real fast,” I rolled my eyes at that. My husband is a very practical kind of guy, and I know if I hadn't seen stuff moving around, I would probably say the same... But I have to give him shit for it!
“Is that the same one that found the goop in her bed?” Hannah gaped, making a disgusted face.
“No! That was Tiffany!” I gasped, not realizing she didn't know our mutual friend had been involved. Hannah had heard all the other details, but not that bit, I guess.
“That was Tiff!?” Hannah's hands flew to her mouth in horror. Tiffany is the sweetest person, and it's just horrible imagining her dealing with such things!
I nodded deeply, “That was Tiff. So imagine poor Tiffany reacting like that! She like, freaked out, and went to sleep at her parents' house for a few days, poor thing.”
Hannah shook her head, still horrified, “Oh god! I can't blame her!”
“Right? No, no, it was scary and gross. I've never seen any substance like that, before or since. It doesn't look like.... aaaa-ny-thing.” I shuddered at the mere memory.
Hannah twitched a little, “Have you had any contact with that other roommate that moved out? The other one?”
I shook my head, “I think I ran into Jess at the store when Tony, my oldest, was a baby? I had her over for coffee after I put him to bed, and she was just, suddenly... a very different person than the girl that I knew, in that apartment? That was the last time I really saw her I think. It's been, like, 16 years? I've looked for her online to reconnect but I never see her anywhere. I'd be curious to catch up with her, and hear what she remembers about it all!”
Hannah nodded, and my warning alarm went off. It was time for me to run away to work, so I had to say goodbye to those old friends of mine, once more. It was good to see them, and awesome finding another local coffeehouse to drag others to. I'm forever after a great cup of coffee, and a great conversation! It's a worthy venture, I feel!
Since this chat with my old friends, I've poked around a little bit to find out more about the Douglas County Jail, where Jonathon once worked. He said the building was there basically since the start of the county, when we were talking.
Looking it up, it looks like the original building for the Douglas County Corrections Department was set up in 1979, and was designed to house 200 single people, across 12 housing units. By 1983, the majority of the single cells were double-bunked to bring capacity up to 363 beds. In 1989, the annex was added, bringing capacity up to 719 beds. In June 2005, new construction added more, for a total of 1449 beds, the same number they have available there today.
So the building wasn't nearly as old as the county, as Jonathon thought. The county itself was established in 1854, so they must have been using some other facility to house their criminals, before 1979.
Poking around, I was hoping to find some other Douglas County Jail stories with you, but there don't appear to be any, online. So this haunted location is kept pretty quiet. It's very much the Nebraska way. This isn't normal, therefore it's not a thing.
The Appalachian Trail, however, is very much acknowledged to be haunted. I found several links with more stories from that trail, if you'd like to read more! Links below!
https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2019/01/paranormal-encounters-along-the-appalachian-trail/
https://www.onlyinyourstate.com/virginia/appalachian-trail-ghost-stories-va/
At a minimum, look at Story #10 here: https://www.railstotrails.org/trailblog/2019/october/17/10-haunted-tales-from-america-s-trails/
Sarver Hollow Shelter, Corbin Cabin, and South Mountain Battlefield stories from this one, all talking about the hikes themselves, if you're interested in going! https://www.blueridgeoutdoors.com/hiking/haunted-hikes/
There are also some really interesting legends about the area ( http://theghosthuntuk.com/legends-appalachian-trail/ ) that are worth looking at. I'm all about cryptids like Bigfoot, too, guys!
There are several other links as well, so if you just google “Haunted Appalachian Trail” you'll see a bunch of other interesting stuff. There have been some true crime things, murders, disappearances, etc, too, if that's your jam.
There's lots of trail, and lots of stories are there to be had! I tried to see if there were any horse related stories that were similar to Jonathon's story, but didn't see anything when I looked. The closest one involved a man on horseback, carrying a baby: http://www.mtnlaurel.com/ghost-stories/435-ghosts-and-haints-of-the-hills.html. If you catch something I missed, please do let us know!
Thank you all so much for joining me! If you have a paranormal story of your own to share, perhaps from the Douglas County Corrections facility, or an Appalachian Trail story of your own, email me your stories, and I'll read them here! Send your stories to: BeyondTheVeilParanormalTales@gmail.com. If you're in the Colorado Springs area, email me to schedule an interview if you prefer! All stories will be anonymous, as always, for your protection.
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I think that wraps it up for tonight! Stay cozy by that fire, and keep that blanket wrapped around you when you head off to bed! Just ignore those weird noises coming from behind that closed door in the hallway. Nothing to see here. It's fine. Everything's fine.
Until next time, this has been Beyond the Veil Paranormal Tales, with Becca! Sleep tight...
*The names in this story have been changed, to protect privacy. All other details of the stories remain true to fact.