We Got the Whole Neighborhood Haunted

I was maybe 7 or 8 years old when an older friend of mine (who I will call K) invited me to play an Ouija board with him. Hey, I was a kid who had never heard of an Ouija board before (shocking, I know) and the way he explained it made the ‘game’ sound fun. So, K took a piece of chalk and started writing down the letters and numbers onto a slab of cement. Yes, cement. We live in houses with these stairs that lead to the upstairs porch and they all start with a big rectangular slab of cement. My friend turned it into an Ouija board.

Now, I don’t know if that counts as an Ouija board but based on the things that started happening after we did our session, I’m leaning towards yes. This was so long ago that I don’t remember what questions we asked or anything that happened specifically during the session. However, I do know we didn’t close it properly. K kind of just gave up and left when nothing happened and my cousin and I went back to playing hide and seek.

A lot of things have happened since then that I don’t even know where to start.

I had nightmares every night. I cannot remember a single happy dream from my childhood. I hated sleep as a child because all my dreams always turned to nightmares of my family dying, the neighbourhood burning, earthquakes, etc., etc. I always woke up in the middle of the night, shaking, wanting to go to my parents’ bedroom but too scared to move. Sometimes my arm hurt a lot but there was nothing wrong with it. I’ll feel the bed dip beside my feet like there’s someone sitting there but when I look there was no one. Often a shadow overlaps mine like there’s someone behind me but again, when I look, there was no one. I would wake up with scratches and bruises sometimes.
People started seeing and hearing weird things around the neighborhood. A light turning on in an empty house, a dark shape vaguely resembling a person walking along on the power lines at night, completely white faces peeking out of dark windows (and sometimes peeking in from the outside even though I was on the SECOND FLOOR), heads without a body, a woman sitting on trees and plants in the dark and things moving of their own accord.

We’ll hear footsteps upstairs even though no one’s up there. Voices murmuring, laughing and singing came randomly from beyond the walls and ceilings at night. Dogs barked and whined at empty air, foul smells came from nowhere and it wasn’t rare that we’ll hear tapping on the second floor windows at night, or (three) knocks on walls. My bed is pushed right against a wall and sometimes I would be up all night pretending I didn’t hear the knocks right beside my head or the woman singing something downstairs from outside.

When these things happen, no one seemed able to call someone from outside the neighborhood or text them. People trying to get into our neighborhood better do it before sundown because even with the lamppost and bus stop right by the entrance they always seem to miss it unless they’re with someone who lives here.

Anyway, the house with the slab of cement we used as an Ouija board never had a permanent occupant. People would move in and then moved right out. Apparently, they heard screams there at night and doors would open and close randomly.

A priest was called in a couple of years ago and things started settling down after that. The dogs are calmer, the knocks on the walls stopped and we don’t hear disembodied voices anymore.
That slab of cement was broken into several pieces and buried in my backyard when that house got renovated. I think that helped too.

I still hear footsteps when I’m alone and shadows crossing my path but I don’t think whatever’s making them is malevolent. I almost fell down the stairs or get me (and the house) burned down once if it wasn’t for a sudden, intense ringing in my left or right ear pulling my attention to the problem.

So that’s my Ouija board story.

Esa