Half Dog

By: Ritu Beri

I was ten at the time,along with my younger brother and sister,when my mother and father bought the one hundred and some odd years old house for a scant 9,000. The owner however,obviously threw in a few extras. The first of which I experienced a year or so after we were in the house. I first saw what We came to call "halfdog" in the front hall going into the living room. I'd see the tail end of a small black dog running into the room. I did not say anything to my family thinking they would say I was joking. Little did I know,that my mother,brother and sister had seen the very same ghost I had countless times.

A few years later,we had moved the living room into where the dining room had been. One night as I sat on the sofa playing my guitar,I saw something out of the corner of my eye,seeming suspended near the ceiling,of what appeared to be a black door closing, surrounded by some kind of "bubbles". I looked in shock closer,and watched it close completely,until it vanished. Again,! ! I kept it to myself,and while talking to my sister,found out that she too,had seen the same thing in the same place as I. My mother one night,awoke at around 2 or 3 am,and while going from her room,was held in by some unkown force. She described it as "Someone standing there in front of me". She could not get out of the room.

My sister had the most terrifying of all the experiences in her room. She had just turned out her light after doing some homework,when she heard a whispering voice calling her name. Thinking it was Me or my brother playing a joke on her,she said"I know it's you,so stop it". It kept up until she sat up and noticed a white figure,on her floor crouching down beside her bed. She jumped over the figure and went screaming down the stairs where me,my brother and mother sat watching television. she never slept in the room afterwards. Among the many things we heard and saw,(footsteps in the attic while we slept,shadows)no harm other than a good fright,ever became us. Years l! ! ater,I got married,had children and ended up renting the house off my mother after her divorce from my father. My wife became the next believer in the house and it's ghosts,after seeing a shadow peer at her from a hallway in the same room as the "black door"my sister and I saw. We moved out shortly after,and the house was sold. I've wondered many times since then,if the new owners inherited "our"old ghosts,and if they too,seen and heard things. One thing is for sure,the new owners also became landlords to some "unearthly"tenants.