Friday Night Ghost Story - Annie's Story

Ghost Child

I would never have believed it if it had not happened to me. I was really a sceptic - all of those stories of ghosts and hauntings were a figment of people’s imaginations. What a load of crap.

But one particular night a few years ago I had to attend a seminar in Newcastle so I travelled down from the Central Coast where I live and was offered an overnight stay with another one of the participants who owned a house in one of the suburbs close by.

Trying to save some money I went for the free bed and breakfast and was really surprised at how lovely the house was when I arrived after a huge day of really heavy work at this particular conference.

My hostess would not tell me too much about the house but it looked old and had many small rooms. The whole place had been renovated she told me. “We have made it look homely and pretty” she said. “I was very cold when we bought it”.

“My husband works away a lot and I am happy for the company” she said.

The house dated back to the late 1890’s she told me and as I wandered through into the back of the house a slight chill crept up my back. The further I looked the more I felt as though I was being watched.

 I took it as a sign of tiredness and was happy for the hot homemade soup and bread offered. We talked for a while but I was really tired and wanted to go to bed early.

I was shown to my room which seemed pleasant enough. There was a bathroom down the hall and, being a cold June night, I was happy to finally get into bed and pull the covers over my head.

I fell asleep quickly but I found myself being woken as I felt something like a weight on top of me.

I was lying on my back and felt as though I was finding it really hard to breathe.

I started to choke and could not catch my breath. I sat bolt upright trying to breathe in, the tears were running down my face and as I wiped them away I suddenly saw a small child standing at the side of my bed. The child was dressed in a long white night shirt. He was a boy maybe about 6 years old.

What are you doing in here? I asked.

The child stood totally still and stared at me.

All I could see was his outline in the dark room but he had very blonde hair.  I was still coughing when all of a sudden he came up and touched me. His hand was as cold as a block of ice. I pulled away but he gripped me tight. I became very scared.

“Go away..go back to bed!”  I called out at the boy.

“You shouldn’t be in here”. And I tore my hand away from his touch.

He did not speak. He just turned around and walked towards the door…directly through it.

At least that is what I thought I saw as he certainly did not open it.

This totally freaked me out and I got out of bed and turned on the light.

I examined the door and opened it and looked down the corridor.

Nothing.

I didn’t know how I was going to get back to sleep and the house was in total darkness from what I could see. It was 3am.

I didn’t want to wake my hostess in case it was her child that had wandered in and I want to appear stupid in waking her up for no reason.

I went back to bed and literally did pull the covers over my head. My heart was pounding and I spent the next hour listening to every creak and bump in the darkness.

I woke to see the sunshine coming in to the room.

I got up and dressed and walked into the kitchen to find my hostess sitting having a coffee.

She looked at me and asked how my night had been.

I told her that I had slept well until her grandchild had gone for a midnight walk and ended up in my room. I asked her why she had not mentioned that she had been babysitting that evening that maybe I would not have been so scared when this child appeared at my bedside.

She said that her children were grown and she had no grandchildren yet.

She was silent for a while.

We both were.

I then said to her “well how did I see then?”

She did say that one of her friends mentioned once that she had also seen a child in the house and that she refused to ever come back into it.

She said that she had never seen anything herself nor her husband and so she didn’t hink much of her friend’s story.

The house had once been used as a temporary orphanage and it was known that children had died there from tuberculosis and influenza in the early years of Newcastle. The house had a very bad reputation and no one stayed very long. She only thought that it was because the house had so many rooms and people dint want to spend money on it.

She often wondered if there was anything funny about the house but she really never considered it to really be haunted.

Although, she did have one other interesting thing that she had come across a few months ago. She had been digging in the garden to put in a flower bed in at the back fence and found some bones buried there.

A cold shiver ran up my spine and even though I graciously took the cup of tea and toast she offered me to tell you the truth I could not wait to get out of there.

When I got home the face of the boy stayed with me for days. I had two dreams of the same child staring at me from the side of my bed over the next few weeks and I said a lot of prayers wishing the child peace and asking that he would stop visiting me.

This was a profound thing for me – I do believe that I did see this ghost go through the door but why did he come to see me I don’t know. Maybe I was in the room where he had died or maybe worse still he was buried out in that lady’s backyard. I have not had anything like that happen since then but it will be something I remember although I really wish that I could forget that face.

Annie