It could have happened to any one, but who did it?

It was the usual cold rainy fall weather experienced by most eastern states in late September, but this one particular night will always be an unforgettable night for my brothers' and I . Mom had just told us one of her famous spooky stories that entailed one of her  family members dying. There were no notes nor books that she would read from, but the stories were recited so many times that the words she spoke never waivered. Mom did such a good job with the dramatics that she had us all sitting straight up in our chairs, listening intently while  no one uttered a sound. Finally, the end of the story left the room dead silent, and as Mom looked around all that she saw were three dropped jaws. She slammed her hand to the table hard! "BANG"  The three of us shook in our chairs and cried out ! Mom cleared her throat ..."Well guys, get the dishes done while I tend to to the baby. Remember that I can hear all of you because the walls do talk!"  Mom always seemed to tell us those great spooky stories right after we had finished our last meal for the day. I seriously believed that it was a psychological plan to spook us so we would get the dishes done faster before one of her ghosts got us!

 

The three of us ranged from the ages of 9,8, and 6. We began to get busy clearing off the dinner table arguing as usual as to whom would be washing the dishes, who would be drying them, and the last important job was who would be putting the clean dishes where they belonged.  Mom was busy upstairs getting the 9 month old ready for bed while Dad was at work on the second shift, whatever that ment!

 

As we began to argued we heard the door bell ring. We all stood frozen in certain postions as we listened for the door bell to ring again. As the door bell rang again, the three of us began to fight and argue over who would answer the door. Of course the three of us ran into each other, a few of us falling to the floor with the winner walking through the dinning room to the living room to answer the door. All of us managed to get to the front door at the same time though. Our feet were cemented in place as the oldest reminded us that it was very dark, no porch light was on,  it was after 8:30 pm, and the true fact was that we never got company at this time. Our curiosity was running a little high now as well as our fear. We looked at each other for guidance. The eldest one told us his plan. He reminded us that there were three oblong windows in the front door, and each window was angled a little higher than the other so that the eldest child and the next eldest would be able to view out the last two windows. The youngest child would get to look out of the large picture window." Get in to position guys!"  We did as we were told. In unison we all spoke at the same time in hushed disappointed voices. "There's no one there!"

 

As we stood staring at each other, Mom yelled down from up satirs,"Who's there?"  "No one!" we replied .  I think that we were a bit disappointed! Mom yelled back to us to get in the kitchen to finish the dishes.

 

Back to the kitchen we scuffled, trying to put the strange incident behind us. Little progress was being made with the dishes when the door bell rang again. Repeatedly, bodies tumbled to the ground as each tried to get to the door first. The second eldst child tried to make an educated guess as to what was going on ..."I'll bet the person who rang the door bell ran away. Someone has to be pranking us!! It's probaly one of your goofy friends he said to the eldest son of 9.  The eldest child becoming offended, pushed the second eldest child and stated, "You're nuts! My friends wouldn't be out here at this time of night, nor would they prank us!"  The youngest brother started to comment, but no one heard him as the older two brothers began to slap each other in the head . Since the younger brother was soo short, he got hit in the cross fire. The door bell rang! Since we were still at the front door we looked out at our stations. We stood there staring into the darkness, no one was there. We would have been able to identify an outline since the street light was close to our house.

Mom was down stairs by now and she too was checking the windows and hearing the door bell ring...no one there! She didn't sound frightened, but she made us go back to do the dishes. Then she called Dad and told him the story. Mom went to the kitchen to inform us of what Dad had said. Dad told Mom not to worry because the wires connecting the door bell to the electrcity were faulty and that they were just acting up. We did believe what they had told us and while the door bell rang several times that evening, we just ignored it.

The next day when Dad was home he sat us all down and told us the truth about the door bell. He informed us that the door bell had no wires connecting it to electricity. If fact he took us to the door bell which was located in the basement doorway and took the box down...no wires coming out of the wall and no wires at all in the square box. The empty box was meant to be a door bell. Mom fainted then. No more door bell ringing after that !

 

(A true story)©HCD AllRightsReserved