WORDS BY LUKE PHILLIPS
When I was in my early twenties my family moved from our home of 17 years on Kamm Rd., about a half-mile outside of Holtville, to a new home on the edge of town.
When I was in my early twenties my family moved from our home of 17 years on Kamm Rd., about a half-mile outside of Holtville, to a new home on the edge of town.
Across
the street and slightly to the east of our new home was an older house
surrounded by a fence made of railroad ties driven into the ground. Time had
taken a toll on the wooden beams and the entire fence leaned slightly inward
toward the house, giving it a very guarded feeling from the outside. The place
gave off a weird vibe right from the get-go, but at that point we had no idea just
how strange the place truly was.
The
house was empty when we moved into the neighborhood and remained that way for
some time. A couple of different people moved into the house, but no one stayed
for long. They mostly waited until their six-month lease was up and quickly
moved out. One of those people later became a family friend and shared some
truly creepy stories about their stay in the house, but they don't want to be
identified in this story, so we'll just call her Mrs. Smith.
Mrs.
Smith moved into the house with her family and quickly discovered that it was
not a fun place to live. She reported feeling something or someone sit down on
the edge of her bed at night when she knew no one was there. She experienced
strange sounds and touches. And most disturbing of all, she was once pinned to
her bed by an unseen force, unable to move and heard a voice whisper in her ear
"Tell them I love them."
I had
moved away and was living in Arizona when all this happened, but as soon as I
moved back to Holtville in 2009 I had my own experience involving the house,
the only experience that I've had in my life that I'm absolutely sure was
supernatural.
My wife
Liz (then my fiancé) and I were looking for a place in town to rent and
momentarily considered the creepy old house across from my parents. Keep in
mind that this was before we heard the ghost stories from the previous tenants.
We called the number on the rental sign out front and strangely enough, the realtor
told us that they didn't know anything about the house and that they didn't
even handle any homes in Holtville. We tried for about two weeks to find the
actually management company or individual that was renting the house, but to no
avail. It kind of felt like the house didn't want to be rented. As strange as
that sounds, that's the feeling we both got.
Since we
couldn't find anybody to show us the house, and we knew it was empty at the
time, we went over by ourselves one evening to have a look around the outside.
The house seemed to be oddly laid-out and constructed and we discovered that
there's actually a hidden garage door built into the side of the house. As we
made our way around one particularly dark corner of the house, Liz and I both
started feeling light-headed and dizzy and very, very unwelcome. We got out of
there and decided we didn't want to rent the place after all.
A few
days later Liz and I were sitting in front of the fence of my parents' front
lawn late at night, not far from the house across the street. We heard rustling
sounds in the yard behind the railroad tie fence, coming from the same corner of the property that had given us the willies a few days earlier. My first
thought was that a small animal of some sort was scuffling around, but then we
heard a door slam loudly and an angry old woman's voice distinctly yell:
"Get outta there!" Then in a split second everything fell silent.
You
might say what we heard could have been anything or anyone, and you may be
right, but I'm certain enough in my own head that what we heard was a ghost.
I knew I
wanted to write a story about a haunted house in Holtville for Halloween
this year and this was the only one I could think of, but I’m sure there are
plenty more. Have you experienced a haunting or any other ghostly activity here
in the Carrot Capital? Tell us about it in the comments section below!
