I went ghost hunting
My mother, a literal witch, entertained me with stories of fighting evil covens, hunting ghosts, and summoning demons during her youth in the bayous of Louisiana. Then, in high school, I met my best friend, who loved the macabre even more than I did.
So it only makes sense that we would one day take an adventure or two to brush with the unknown during our untethered college years.
It was our first weekend together ever. This was at some point in mid-2008, as I was living in an off-campus apartment, but my dad's company had not yet laid him off. We had a full suite of activities, but chief among them was a ghost hunt we planned to the Sam Houston Memorial Museum. The neat thing about the museum, located across the street from campus, was that several of the old buildings that had been important to Sam Houston's life had been relocated to the museum grounds.
According to the haunting archive from Shadowlands.net, there had been paranormal activity at two of the buildings: the Woodland Home, and the Law Office, both of which are the buildings still located at their original site.
We stopped at the Taco Bell near campus for some 2:30 AM courage tacos, and arrived at the museum grounds just around 3. The museum grounds weren't closed off or locked down, or anything like that. It was just a green space located between some of the nicer campus dorms and quiet residential housing near campus. At just around 37k residents in 2008, Huntsville was fairly quiet late at night, and the museum grounds where the old houses were kept didn't have lighting on their own. Aside from our own flashlights, used sparingly, we were reliant on the ambient light from the streets, obscured by the huge trees.
The grounds where the old buildings are located are actually slightly below street level. I've attached a street view of the paved path that cuts through the park for you below; case the place a little bit.
Looking at it now in street view, there's clearly a sign that says the park closes at dusk; no idea if it was there at the time or not.
We parked our vehicle and sallied forth into the darkness.
Our first destination was clear across the grounds - the Boathouse. This house was where Sam Houston had died; he hadn't been too fond of the house in life, apparently.
As we peered in the windows with our flash lights, I remember my friend turning to me and positing:
"What if we saw a face in there?"
I shuddered, and we pressed on. We planned to check out the remaining buildings as we made our way back to the car. We approached some of the old cabins, all locked up tight, which didn't yield anything much.
Then we approached The Woodland Home. This is the building that the street view from above faces and, if you recall, one of the two allegedly haunted locations at the site. The other, the Law Office, is right next to it.
My stomach folded in on itself as we crossed past the threshold of the white picket fence, breathing and the crunch of gravel under our shoes the only accompaniment.
According to Shadowlands, objects could be seen falling off Sam Houston's desk. I pointed my flashlight in the window and, to my relief and disappointment, found goose egg.
We pressed on to The Woodland Home. This building was a dogtrot house, and, during the day, the breezeway was kept open so that visitors could peer into the home furnished in the style of the time behind protective plexiglass.
I recall the breezeway being open, and seeing the garden and the neighborhood behind it, but I can't say how much of that memory is faithful to reality.
What's next, however, is burned into my mind.
We climbed up the steps until we were on the landing. According the Shadowlands, voices could be heard from below if you were on the second floor - access to which was always locked. We planned to peer through the plexiglass if we could, and be gone.
As I joined my friend on the first step, the sound of something crashing onto a wooden floor shattered the silence like a gunshot.
"Did you hear that?" my friend asked, adrenaline palpable in his voice.
We bolted.
Back at the car, we discussed whether to go back or not. We decided that the prospect of the sound's source being a police officer wasn't worth the risk.
The parking lot, which had been empty when we arrived, now had a security vehicle in it. This detail, however, might be apocryphal as neither of us commented on it at the time, and my friend doesn't recall any other vehicles in the parking lot.
Was it faulty memory on my friend's part, or is my brain doing its part in maintaining the Masquerade?
I barely slept that night and, when my friend came into the living room to join me, he revealed he hadn't either. We watched a few episodes of The Maury Show over coffee before we debriefed over the night's events.
Neither of us knew what to make of it. But we both agreed this wouldn't be the only adventure we'd take to the edge of the living world - and it wasn't.
It's still a story we revisit from time to time. We even talked about it last month. My friend has always been more of a skeptic than I have, but he openly admits can't explain that night's events.
I don't know either, and I like that. It's a little gift of mystery. It's a door left ajar just enough to let imagination breed nightmare.
We went into the night, and (maybe) something bumped.
Hehehehehehe~
Thank you for reading.
