THE LANDSCAPE GHOST
( As told to Selinda
by Nikki, Adrian's sister )
It was around June of last summer when my brother started working for a landscaping company. Adrian had been on the job for only a month when he got the call. The home office sent him to the house of a regular customer who lived in the southside of town in the outskirts of San Antonio. Driving in the company van, Adrian wasn't familiar with this part of town and he was alone. The area was remote. "Man I'm out in the boonies," he whispered to himself. All he could see were trees and a few scattered houses.
Adrian was sure he had missed the turn when he finally found the country road. It came to a dead end. He was relieved to see a man waving at him standing in the front yard. The old man motioned for him to follow him inside. Adrian thought it was odd that he had led him inside his home instead of to the backyard. Instead he pointed to a heavy looking credenza in the living room. The man wanted him to move it to the back wall. Looking at his slight frame, Adrian knew that the owner would not have been able to budge it. Adrian was glad to help and the old man was grateful. Adrian followed him toward the kitchen and he was led to the back door. He worked that afternoon removing weeds and pruning various parts of the backyard. Adrian could tell that for the most part, the yard had been well taken care of in the past.
The next day the manager received an irrate call from a woman. "Why did you landscape our yard? I already had cancelled services." The manager was somewhat confusd. "Mam' we received a call from your address to come out and do some work. Besides, you already paid us." The woman argued that no one had called the landscaping company. She demanded to see proof of payment. Adrian returned that afternoon and handed her the check. The lady stared at the personal check. She remained silent for several moments and then looked at Adrian in disbelief. There were tears in her eyes. "That's my father's check.......that's his signature. I don't understand. How can this be? My father died three years ago."
My brother Adrian, once a hardnose skepic left that afternoon a believer in the paranormal. There was no doubt in his mind, he had spent an afternoon with a ghost. And he still had the check to prove it!
Haunted School
by Selinda
It was October, and as a third grade teacher
I was determined to have a successful year in my
new assignment. It wasn't uncommon for me to stay
in my classroom to check papers and prepare for the next day. Maybe it was all the time I spent after hours, but it didn't take long for me to figure out there was something very strange going on in the old school.
The building was built in 1932 and the pipes often made clanking sounds. The floors and the stairs creaked. But, there was comfort in my solace and eventually I grew use to the late hours and the strange sounds of the school. Sometimes Angela the custodian would come by to check on me. She'd finish cleaning all the classrooms in her wing, and peek her head to say hello. She was a welcome sight and her visit gave me a nice break.
One Friday evening, Angela came in a little earlier in her shift. She said hello as she entered my classroom. But I noticed something was wrong. She looked a little pale and was unusually quiet. "Are you O.K.?" I asked. She smiled and asked,"Miss, are you going to stay a little longer? I'm thinking of closing up a little earlier tonight." I glanced out the window. It was dark outside and I knew it was pretty late. "Well, I'm almost finished, is there something wrong?"
She looked at me for a few moments, not sure whether to divulge her secret. She whispered,
"I.....think...I......saw a ghost."
I stared at her and realized she was not joking. "Wha...Where did you see this ghost?" I followed her to the second floor. My mind raced wildly. What if an intruder had broken into the school? Angela explained she was in one of the classrooms on the first floor when she heard footsteps going up the stairs. She followed the sound all the way to the old wing. Then she noticed the footsteps stopped outside room 205. As she entered the classroom, she heard the rufffling of papers. She didn't see anything out of place. She was about to leave, when all of a sudden she noticed a woman sitting in the corner at the teacher's desk. Angela stopped what she was doing and stared. "The woman looked transparent and seemed to be sorting papers. She didn't look at me at all," Angela blurted. " It was the strangest thing. Then she just stood up and walked across the room. She disappeared in the wall!"
I looked around the empty classroom. This was the oldest part of the school. The room had several windows. "Are you sure it wasn't a reflection?" I asked trying to convince myself of a logical explanation. I knew that the classroom faced the playground. If the room had faced the teacher's parking lot, I could dismiss it to the head lights of a passing car. But there weren't vehicles or anything with lights coming from the playground.
"Oh no, Miss it was a woman.....a teacher, I think....She never looked at me. She just got up from that desk over there and walked through the wall. I could see right through her." I remained quiet and tried not to let it scare me. As we walked down the stairs, we passed the first floor hallway. "Look Miss, that's the woman!" I froze, expecting to see an apparition. But Angela was pointing to a portrait hanging on the wall. The photograph had a small brass plate underneath.
"It read Agnes Cotton, Principal 1936" I stared at her picture for several seconds. "Angela, this woman was the Principal of the school. But it couldn't be her. Agnes Cotton died a long time ago." Angela didn't waver, "that's the same woman I saw in the classroom."
