A (post) Christmas Haunting

Back when I was single, I had a haunting. We'll call it the "Ghost of Christmas Past," because it took place in Summer, but was most definitely a Christmas themed haunting. Of course Marley didn't visit me, but I do suspect evidence of some particularly mischievous elf ghosts. Elves aren't all cute and cuddly and live in trees and make cookies, you know. (Which come to think of it...isn't that pretty horrifying to know that elves who make cookies live in the trees amongst us?)

 I live in an old house, originally a farm house back in the day, apparently the first in the neighborhood. The architecture is somewhat unusual. The master bedroom is ginormous and takes up most of the second floor, except for an attached half-bath and a spacious (at the time) unfinished attic. Now, true, I used to abuse the poor attic. Basically, it became my storage (i.e., lobbing unused or undesired crap into) area. Everything went flying into there from new, emptied boxes of junk just bought (this was before recycling) to yesteryear's unwanted lamps to broken down furniture to discarded clothing. Boom. Wipe my hands of dust and shut the door. Out of sight, out of mind.

(Until years later when I met my wife. Because I didn't want her to see the impressive pile of junk I'd accumulated, I told her that the attic was where I hid the bodies of my victims. Honestly, I think she would've been less shocked by bodies than what she eventually uncovered. But I digress...)

So, lo, it came to pass that many, many moons ago, I was resting fitfully upstairs in my bedroom. A hot summer's night, I had kicked off my blankets and turned the fan on. I lay back in bed. Just as the Sandman came and sprinkled sand into my eyes ("Aieeeeee! My eyesssss!"), right as I began to sail the sleepy shores of slumber ("Pass the Dramamine!"), I heard a quiet, rhythmic tinkling. Or so I thought. Just a single little bell.

I tossed and turned, not wanting to pay heed to my imagination. Yet, the quiet tinkling continued. I had absolutely zero desire to contemplate the existence of supernatural hi-jinx in my house, so I enfolded the pillow around my head like a burrito. Just like the attic: out of sight, out of mind.

Then I gave it some thought. You know how sometimes ambient sounds in the night, particularly when you're hanging onto that half-waking, half-dozing precipice before tumbling over into sleep, can sometimes sort of gestate into a familiar ear-worm of a song? How sounds of the night can form a melody of their own? No? Is it just me? Well, that's what I decided to chalk it up to. Or maybe it was just my imagination running amok. It'd been a long day at work.

I decided to come up from cover. Gain peace of mind by proving, without a doubt, I'd heard nothing.

But then it started again. A slow melodic tinkling. And as I listened very closely, it began to form a song. A very familiar song. One without lyrics, but unmistakably one big, honkin' helluva earworm song.

"You better watch out, you better not cry..."

Gasping, I sat up in bed. Tried to orientate myself, get my bearings. Like a dog will sometimes tilt its head to better lock in on a troubling sound, I did the same thing.

"...you better not shout, I'm telling you why..."

Nooooooo! The song was definitely there. Quiet as a bug's whisper, but very much present. At once coming from all around me, yet nowhere at all, from somewhere dark and mysterious and otherworldly and better off not being thought about.

I got up. Emptied my bladder, first things first. I tiptoed through the room, trying to find the source without rousting the ire of some angry ghost. I honed my hearing. Closed my eyes. Focused. The closer I came to the shut attic door, the more certain I was that whatever caused the otherworldly sound emanated from within.

With a shaking hand on the knob, I twisted and...

The tinkling stopped.

Maybe it'd been nothing. A trick of the mind. Something from far away. Perhaps one of the weird neighbors playing out-of-season Christmas music at 3 in the morning.

I decided I didn't want to know. Some things are better off buried.

I ran back to bed, settled in, did some deep breathing, and...

"Santa Claus is coming to towwwwwn. He sees you when you're sleeping..."

Noooooooooooooo! The gentle tinkling had started to tinkle tinklously again.

This time when I wrapped the pillow around my head, I held on tight, riding out the long wait until dawn broke.

At some point I must've drifted off. I awoke to blessed sunlight streaming in through the window, a nice, toasty Summer sunlight far, far removed from creepy, fat bearded men in red watching me when I sleep.

In the cold, most assuredly unsupernatural light of day, I went into the attic. Looked around. Found nothing off, nothing askew, no signs of nocturnal visitors, human, animal or ghostly.

And went to work.

Then around midnight that very night, the music fired up again.

This time I prepared myself to face my supernatural tormentors. I flung open the attic door and...the tinkling stopped. I flipped on the light. Nothing.

When I got back in bed, damn Santa Claus started stalking me again with his horrific music box.

While I wanted to tell people at work about it, I knew they'd think I was crazy. Hell, even I began to think along those lines. I didn't know what terrified me more: being crazy or having an active ghost next to my bedroom.

The hauntings continued throughout the week. Finally, Saturday afternoon rolled around and I was determined to get to the bottom of it. I tore apart my mountain of rubble, my empire of past indulgences. I opened box after box. Like a madman, I ripped apart everything, exorcising my old teddy bear, my warped Frampton Comes Alive album, my designer jeans, everything I thought could be touched of otherworldly influence, until...

"He sees you when you're sleeping..."

Of course! The Christmas junk box! I opened it, dug through it...

"He knows when you're awake..."

And there was the culprit! A stupid, damn Christmas ornament. A battery operated globe enclosing a little train circling around a miniature North Pole. I'd forgotten to turn it off. Or...HAD I?

Why would the music have been intermittent? Why did it just now start in the dog days of Summer and lay dormant over the hard, brutal Winter? Why did it stop every time I came toward the attic?

Naturally, the only logical reason was that my house was built on top of an elf burial ground. 

While on the topic of hauntings, check out my historical ghost novel, The Ghosts of Gannaway. While it's not nearly as frightening as my post-Christmas haunting, the entire small mining town of Gannaway, Kansas is under siege by evil spirits, ghosts, bad men with fat wallets, and the "yellow-eyed fever." For more info, scoot on over here right now!