The thing that lives in your mind
A young girl stares at her reflection in the mirror. A voice in her head talks to her slowly, in words she can understand.
“Who are you?” She asks the voice slowly.
“I am your friend.” the voice replies. “I can play with you when you get lonely.”
“But what’s your name?”
“My name? I am the Un-you. I live in everyone.”
“How do you do that?” The little girl asks slowly?
“Would you like to see me?” The voice asked.
“Sure.”
The girls reflection began to move.
“Old Mike put to rest after 64 years,” the front-page headline in the now-defunct Nevada County Picayune trumpeted after the burial. Even though no one knew Old Mike’s real name or much of anything about him, his burial was big news — it had been a long time coming. Old Mike died Aug. 21, 1911, his death bringing with it notoriety he likely would never have experienced while living. Actually, what happened after he died accounted for his macabre celebrity status.
For 64 years, Old Mike’s embalmed body was on public display at Cornish Mortuary in Prescott, the wizened figure in its glass case becoming a fixture in the Nevada County seat as townspeople and tourists alike gawked and speculated. Some said Old Mike — a name bestowed upon the corpse by the mortuary staff — had been a traveling salesman who hawked pencils and other small items. Others thought he was a man down on his luck, who had been forced into the life of a hobo. Whatever his profession or origin, this man no one really knew was found leaning against an oak tree in the Prescott City Park with nothing on him offering information about who or what he was.
"Contemporary sources mention the death of the young slave girl who hurled herself from the roof and confirm the discovery of seven chained and maltreated slaves in quarters near Lalaurie's kitchen, but confirm none of the more lurid allegations regarding buckets of genitalia, makeshift sex-change operations, brains stirred with sticks, women nailed to floors by their intestines, tongues sewn together, mouths stuffed with excrement and stitched up, females flayed to resemble caterpillars, suits of human skin, sliced penises, 'human crabs,' bottles of blood or 'grand gore chambers'; nor do they detail scores of victims, no evidence for which can be traced in accounts published at the time."
The house I grew up in was built in the 1880's and my family lived there until 2004 or so. At the time of the first experience(that I'm aware of), I was only about 3 or 4 months old and my parents were in the middle of a kitchen remodel. My dad says he woke up in the middle of the night from a dead sleep and had an overwhelming sensation that someone was in the house. So he grabbed his .357 from his night stand and took our lab and did a perimeter check of the house. Nothing was out of place and everything seemed to be in order. But our dog would not go into our basement. My dad tried pushing him down but it still wouldn't budge. So my dad picked him up and carried him down and soon as he put him down he ran back up the stairs. SO my dad cleared the basement by himself. After realizing everything was fine, he grabbed a drink and decided to go back to bed. As my dad was walking back up the stairs to the second story, he looked up and saw the figure of an elderly man standing at the top of the stairs looking at him. My dad said he was close enough where he tried to grab the figure thinking it was an intruder but it simply vanished. A few weeks after that, my dad had another experience. Again he woke up and felt a presence that had the hairs on his neck standing up. He rolled over and looked through the doorway and saw the same figure staring at him from the hallway. My went to reach for his .357 and when he looked back the figure was gone. He checked the house out for an signs of a break in and could not find anything.
My dad never told my mom about what he had been seeing until my mom had an experience for herself. My dad was gone on a business in Kentucky and she was home alone with me. She woke up in the middle of the night and felt something heavy on the end of the bed. She looked up and saw a figure fitting the same description sitting on the bed looking at her. She quickly turned on the light and the figure was nowhere to be seen. She called my dad panic stricken around 3 in the morning and told him what she had saw. He played it off as a dream and there was nothing to be afraid of. After my dad returned, he told her what he had seen.
We never did figure out what the figure was. My parents have two theories on who the figure might be. One is that it is the original owner of the house not pleased with his house being worked on and the other theory is the figure being my grandfather, who passed away before I was born, checking on his son's first child. After the work was completed the figure was never seen again but every once and awhile you get the feeling like you were being watched. Especially in the basement.
The house is now abandoned and condemned. The local dump bought the house and tried renting the property but had trouble keeping tenants. The next door neighbor who I still deer hunt with said one group of renters said the house was haunted. One winter they did not winterize the house while it was empty and the pipes burst and the basement filled with water. Evidently water was coming out of the basement windows. Now the house is filled with mold and is scheduled to be demolished soon.
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