29 Aug The Steubenville Ghost

Our encounter with the Steubenville Ghost was very surprising because we didn’t believe in such phenomena. If I had imbibed, or been by myself, I would probably have turned to some professional for help after the experience. I say we, because I was not the only participant. The late Clarence R. Coulter, who’s family still reside in Akron, Oh. and I owned Halbert and Coulter Construction Co., Inc. in Wheeling W.Va. Early morning of December 30, 1948 he drove his new Hudson as we went into a small factory at 1817 E. High Ave. in Youngstown, Oh. It was an unusual day for that time of year in northeast Ohio. It was an overcast day with temperatures in the forties. I give you this because records can verify the accuracy of my memory. About 11:00 am. in the office of Storm Sash, Inc. a radio announced an extreme cold front was approaching carrying extremely hazardous icing conditions. It warned everyone to get off the roads and streets shortly. We went to a little greasy spoon nearby and prepared to leave earlier than planned to try to beat the severe weather. We concluded our business and left about 2:00 pm. As we proceeded south on Market St. we came to the south edge of town and Schotts Restaurant on the east side of the street. It was a well-known establishment that was only closed and torn down a few years ago. Neither of us was smart enough to be too afraid, and we were both great optimists. We couldn’t resist a feast. We ate with no drinks. We had parked about 20 feet from the front door. As we stepped out of the door, we almost fell on the predicted glare ice, so we held onto the car fenders and anything else for support to keep from falling. We were agile and very active young men. We saw no traffic moving. We entered his car and sat there debating if we should try to find some place to stay. Since New Years Eve was the following day, we preferred to be home in Wheeling for it. We decided since we were experienced drivers in inclement weather, and no traffic was moving, if we proceeded at 20 or 25 miles per hour and slid into something, we might bend a fender, but unlikely to be injured, so we decided to go home.

27 Aug Notes

All this shit started when I found that little note. On a square piece of paper I found at the bottom of a box I was moving out of my basement, it read, "HELLO? PLEASE RESPOND". I had no idea how long the paper had been there, those boxes had sat in my basement since I moved in. I ignored it until the next morning, when I opened my coffee maker to throw out the grounds, and inside was a sopping wet piece of paper that read "PLEASE RESPOND! PLEASE HELP". I figured it must have been put inside my coffee maker by whoever was pulling this pointless prank, because it wasn't there when I put my coffee grounds in. I found more notes, under my mousepad, inside my computer tower while I was putting in some new RAM, between the layers of tissue of my toilet paper roll, under my DVD player's disc tray. Places that no one would ever look, places you'd never think of putting a note, places you knew no one would ever look and it would be foolish to put a note, because who knew when they would see it? But it kept happening, and they all said the same thing every time, begging me to respond and help them. Being the retard I am, one day I just got fed up when I found one inside a cup in my dishwasher (right after I had run it - the paper was dry) I wrote on the back of it "HELLO. I'M RESPONDING. PLEASE EXPLAIN YOUR SITUATION!" and slid it under a crack in my bath-fitted tub.

19 Aug The Shadow Being

When I was fourteen, my mother and father were divorced, and I went to live with my mother and a man she supposedly fell in love with several years ago. We searched for a house for all three of us to live in, and eventually found the perfect house. A few months later, after finding out that my dad had cancer, my mom went, even while engaged to this man living with us, to the very hospital and stayed with my father for about a week, leaving me to fend for myself as I remained in the basement, wasting my time on the computer. It was late, around midnight if I recall correctly, and the man living with us went off to bed, turning off every light in the house, except for the computer room in the basement. During this time we had one dog and one cat. I can't remember exactly where the dog was, but the cat was downstairs with me, doing what cats do, I guess. While typing away on the computer, it occurred to me, after several minutes had passed, my cat had been staring at the door, which was left wide open, for a long time. Her ears appeared to be pinned against the back of her head and I finally noticed her faint growling. Thinking that it was the dog, I turned around and called for her, only then to notice something that took me completely by surprise. The door that leads up to the second floor was left wide open. In front of it, taking the size of a three or four year old, was this ominous being, made of shadow.