Date: Sat, 3 Apr 1999 11:19:54 -0800 (PST)
To: stories@ghosts.org
My family moved around a lot, from this country to another, a state to another. My dad just liked to move around, especially when he found someone to get a contract with him. The most horrific “ghostly” haunting that I ever had was in a house in Osaka, Japan.
My dad bought the house from a middle aged man who can, obviously, speak english, Mr. Koijiro. The house was nice. There was a little Japanese pond, one of those with the bamboo thingie. The house was an old style house with sliding paper doors which is really easy to tear. The first time I saw the house, I really appreciated whoever did all the work. There was a little cottage at the back of the house where there was a platform and an open ground with ashes in it. The man who sold the house told us that it was for the winter for the tea season. We moved in a couple of weeks later. At first there wasn’t anything scary, just typical boyish life, games and running around.
It was during the winter when everything started. The house owner invited us to his house to show us the formal tea ceremony. Then he came to our house and started the fire at the little cottage. It was warm and cozy, he made us tea and we talked until late night, about midnight or so. Everyone went to sleep, the man stayed in the guest room.
I had a room in the east wing of the house. Everything was fine until the neighborhood dogs started to howl and bark. I got up to see what was going on. There was a long line of people walking down the street, dress in red and black. There were murmurs. I ran to the door to see what was going on. As soon as I got to the front door where the shoes were, a man was knocking on the door. The shadow outside the door displayed his unusual large size for a Japanese man.
I opened the door but no one was there. Then I closed it, the shadow and the knocking still remaining. I was about to go in my pants. I turn back and ran for my room. The knocking got louder but no one got up. Everywhere I went the knocking and the shadows followed me on the door. Until something shrieked and they all got quiet again. I ran straight for my room, not caring to think about the shadows and the shriek.
I got in my room, pulled the sheets over my head but that wasn’t it. I felt someone was watching me through the window and the paper doors. Somehow I got up my courage and pulled my comforter open and look at the window. There was a faint figure of an old woman in a black kimono. She was angry, her eyes were red, look as if it was burning. Her mouth keep moving but there weren’t any sound. She seemed to be scowling at me, I don’t know why.
The next moring my dad and the man asked me what was wrong for my eyes were all red. I told them the whole story. The man gasped and he told us everything. The women was his great grandmother. She was the one who built the house out of her hard work. She told her kids to keep strangers out and never sell the house. Mr. Koijiro said that her body was buried on the mountain, four miles from the house.
The man ask me if I did anything to the house, I only remember that I picked out a flower and throw it into the pond. The man shook his head, his grandmother was proud of her pond, she always wanted it clean. He asked us if we wanted to stay in the house, and we answered yes. He told us to get some flowers and incense sticks and burn it.