This story a part of the True Ghost Stories page on Obiwan's UFO-Free Paranormal Page. Please do not copy or distribute without permission from Obiwan and/or the original author!
From: BKOT68@aol.com
Date: Mon, 1 Feb 1999 17:15:55 EST
To: Obiwan@ghosts.org
Subject: Laughing
Every summer, my parents used to send me to my cousin's house near Chicago, Ill for a two week vacation. The summer that I was about eleven, Peggy and her family moved from their house in Barrington proper, to a large custom house in the country. The area they lived in dated from the 1860's (according to the gravestones in the cemetary around the corner from her house) and the entire neighborhood used to reside on farm land and before that, it used to be Indian territory. Nothing strange had happened until I went to visit there when I was thirteen.
Once in awhile, especially if it was raining, Peggy and I would huddle in front of the television in the family room and watch movies. Nothing really exciting. She said she would make the popcorn and since the sodas were downstairs in their rec room, I offered to grab some cokes. I ran downstairs and went behind the wet bar where the small fridge was. As I closed the door, I heard a quick laugh behind men and a BOO! Surprised at first, I thought it was one of my other cousins trying to scare me and headed toward the stairs. I felt someone tap me on the shoulder and an overwhelming wave of just ice come over me. Then the laughing started. To a teenager, it felt like the laughs surrounded the whole basement. I started to run up the stairs and that was when a deep booming voice asked: " Scared ya, didn't I? "
When I walked into the kitchen, Peggy looked at me, annoyed, and asked where the Cokes were. I just shook my head. She glared at me and went downstairs. Two seconds later as she came stumbling up the stairs, we both heard and felt the laughter around us.
She grabbed the leash and the dog and we all decided to walk around her neighborhood ( which, luckily for us is about a two mile wide circle and took almost two hours to walk around until her parents came home). Everytime we passed her house, we would see a figure standing in one of the front bedroom windows. Guiness, Peggy's dog, would bristle and growl when we did passed. Finally, her parents came home and we saw that both her brothers were with Peggy's father. Since his office is in Downtown Chicago, it would take almost an hour to drive down to the city.
Every since that day, I've never been back to that house and Peggy never did go back into the basement.
Sincerely,
Kathie Wehrstedt
P.S. Ever since I was a young child, strange things have happened to me almost everywhere I've lived or slept over at. I attribute them to ghost stirrings, but only twice, did I ever meet a ghost bent on harming me.