In my opinion, October is by far the best month of the fall season. Football and Hockey are in full swing and the Baseball playoffs are under way. The weather is changing but for most Midwesterners, we're still not wearing our coats yet. The leaves on the trees are decorating both the sky and the ground with a wonderful spectrum of color.
For the kids and many adults the highlight of the month is definitely Halloween. The history of Halloween goes back to the British, Irish, Celtic, and Roman peoples. Their beliefs varied but it all revolved around spirits coming back to earth and humans avoiding them by wearing masks and disguises. Somehow over the last couple hundred years that turned into hitting up all your neighbors for candy during the day and dressing up like Taiwanese whores at night. But who can really complain about any of that?
That being said one of my favorite aspects of Halloween is the telling of ghost stories. There is nothing quite like it. When a random bar friend tells me a story about how she saw a person who looked JUST LIKE Brad Pitt downtown today, I debate taking that emergency pill I have in my breast pocket. But when someone is telling a ghost story, they have everyone’s attention. So without further ado, I want to share a ghost story with you.
This story is a family heirloom so to speak. I’ve told it so many times I’m excited to finally put in down on paper. About twenty six years ago, just before I was thrown into this world via my mother’s birth canal, my family went on a vacation to Captiva Island in Florida. My Mom and Dad came with my older brother Phil and sisters Holly and Tina. They were quite young at the time. Along for the trip were also my Grandma and Grandpa with my Uncle Iggy.
They had rented a house right on the beachfront with a beautiful view, beach close by, tennis courts, pool – the works. But the weird vibes began as soon as they got to the house. As my grandfather opened the door to the house after checking in, he and my dad noticed something very odd. The living room had curtains that extended from the ceiling to the floor covering some sliding glass doors leading outside. They both noticed the distinct shape of a man behind those curtains. Now my grandfather and dad are both no-nonsense type of people. Ghosts? Yeah right. They tried to re-create the shape by opening the door this way, that way, slam it, open it slow. They tried and tried to no avail.
That was weird but it’s no big deal. We’re on vacation. Upstairs there was a loft that my uncle was sleeping in. He thought it was really cool and was unnecessarily excited to sleep in this thing. One night he was in bed when suddenly the door closed. As my uncle described it, something invisible jumped on his chest and was holding him down. He began to struggle, thrash, and try to get this thing off of him. It was strong and caught him off guard so he began to yell. As he did this thing put its hands over his mouth and muffled his screams. Luckily my grandfather heard something and went to Iggy’s room. As he opened the door it was pushed back closed. My grandpa struggled to open the door but something was preventing him from doing so. And as quickly as it began, it ended. Iggy, who was eighteen years old and trying to act cool on the beach for the ladies, slept with his parents the rest of the trip. I’m sure he didn’t mention that to any of the bikini babes.
Now my Mom had a different experience that was much less violent. And to preface this a little, my Mom has had different paranormal experiences before so it sounded like she took this pretty well considering everything. She awoke one night in her bedroom with a group of glowing orbs in the room. As she turned to observe them she noticed she could see the tops of the dressers. Upon processing that, she realized she was floating above her bed with these orbs. She tried to wake up my Dad but that would never work. To this day my Dad will sleep through the awesomeness of two Kodiak bears fighting outside his bedroom door. And just like the experience my Uncle had; as quickly as it began, it ended.
The last experience was a collective dream had by all the women in the house. Every night they would have a dream that they were enclosed in a dark box. The box was moving and they could never get out. More on that later. The sum of all these experiences naturally caused everyone to rethink this vacation. They decided to call it quits and return home to Chicago as everyone was sufficiently freaked out. After returning my grandfather received a call from the rental agency. They wanted to let him know that they were going to charge his credit card for the damages occurred during their stay. Apparently after leaving the dishes were broken and strewn about the kitchen, water damage had occurred to the floors, and sand was thrown in all the plumbing fixtures. The place looked like a hurricane had come through. Now obviously my grandpa was not going to claim a ghost did it. Why look like a crazy person if you don’t have to? He just paid the damages and decided to put everything behind him.
My Mom decided to do a little research on the area considering the madness that ensued on the trip. It turns out that these experiences may have been the result of a distant history. When the Spanish were colonizing the area around Florida and the Caribbean, Captiva Island had an interesting role. Spanish ships would sail near the island and drop cargo boxes overboard. The boxes would wash ashore to Captiva, where they were collected by other Spaniards. One of the most common cargos dropped off to Captiva were women to be sold or forced into prostitution. That explains the dreams the women had about bobbing up and down in a dark box from which they could not escape. The angry violent spirit that cornered my Uncle and appeared to my Dad and Grandpa probably had something to do with this as well. But maybe he was just a terrible person trying to attend to unfinished business. Whatever the exact reason, there were a lot of different spirits telling my family to leave.
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