Although I love to write about ghosts, demons, and hauntings, I don’t really believe in them. That doesn’t mean they don’t exist, however. I don’t believe in putting pineapple on a pizza, but I know it still happens.
The stories of haunted houses have always interested me, but I have never actually been in one.
At least, I don’t think I have.
What am I talking about? Well, let me take you back about twenty-five years. I was working as a patrol officer for the Hillsborough Police Department. I had been with them for about three years and, by that time, I was pretty sure I had seen just about everything there was to see.
This is a dangerous assumption on the part of many young officers. Usually by year ten you start to realize that you will never actually see it all. Something will always find a way to surprise you no matter how jaded you become. There will always be some drunk, naked man breaking into a McDonald’s after it closes for the night so he can grill up his own hamburgers. There will always be a medical call for that moron who swallowed 18 steel ball bearings because his roommate bet him ten bucks he wouldn’t do it.
In short, there will always be something to make you say, “Hmmm. That’s a new one.”
I wasn’t there yet. I was still pretty cocky at this point, and I felt very confident that I could not be surprised by anything or anyone.
One afternoon, while on patrol, I was dispatched to a residential burglar alarm. The dispatcher advised me that the homeowners had been contacted and they were on their way back home to meet me.
I arrived a few minutes later to find Doug (another officer working that day) standing in the driveway of the house talking with a young man and woman that I assumed were the homeowners. I got out of my car, walked up the driveway and spoke with them.
The couple unlocked their front door and Doug and I went into the house first to make sure there was no one inside. After checking the home and finding it empty and no sign of any break-in, we let the couple come inside and they turned off the alarm.
I advised dispatch that we were all okay and I was told that this was the fourth false alarm at this particular house in three months. I passed the information along to the family and told them that they needed to find out what was causing the false alarms, or the city might start billing them every time the police came out.
The woman told me, “Oh, we know what’s causing the alarms. It’s the ghost.”
I looked toward her husband, fully expecting him to say something like, “She’s kidding.” Or, “Don’t listen to her. My wife forgot to take her medication this morning.”
He said neither of those things. Instead, he just nodded and said, “Yeah. There’s a ghost in our house.”
I glanced at Doug, wondering which one of us was going to bring up the topic of psychiatric treatment first. Before either of us could say a word, however, we both heard a noise from somewhere deeper in the house. It sounded like someone bouncing a tennis ball on a hardwood floor.
All four of us glanced down a hallway in time to see a yellow ball roll out of one of the bedrooms on the right side, cross the hallway, and go into a bedroom on the left.
Doug drew his service weapon and immediately went to investigate.
The husband looked at me as Doug left and mouthed the word, “ghost.”
I saw Doug turn into the right bedroom and disappear. He came out a moment later and stepped into the left bedroom. After another few seconds, he walked back to where I was standing with the homeowners, holstered his weapon, and said, “We’re done here.”
The next thing I heard was the front door closing behind Doug as he left the house.
I finished speaking with the couple, said goodbye and went outside to speak with my partner, but he was already in his car and driving away. I won’t say he was necessarily in a hurry to get out of there, but he certainly wasn’t taking his time, either.
I thought this behavior was a little odd, so I got on my car radio and asked him to meet up with me a little later in the shift.
When I finally got a chance to speak with him, I asked what happened.
He said, “Gary, I am never going in that house again.”
“Why not,” I asked, waiting for him to start laughing and admit he was just joking to try and spook me.
“I went into the first room and there was nobody there.”
That wasn’t surprising to hear. We had already searched the house and found it empty. The ball could have been pushed by a breeze and rolled off a shelf or dresser. I told Doug what I was thinking.
He said, “Yeah. I thought the same thing, but then I went into the other room and I couldn’t find the ball. It was just gone.”
“I think the ghost took it,” he told me.
Doug wasn’t smiling when he said it. To this day, he has never changed his story or admitted he was lying. I am not 100 percent certain whether he is telling me the truth about what happened, or if he is just really good at stretching out a practical joke.
I do know, however, that he never went back into that house. And to be completely honest, neither did I.
I don’t believe in ghosts, but I also see no reason why I should push my luck.
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