If there was ever a perfectly spooky house, the house on Prospect was it.
For it was a leering, skulking old Victorian that brooded under the outstretched arms of gigantic oaks that surrounded it.
And my father bought it.
Thanks, dad.
He then filled it with the curiosities and antiques he'd been collecting since he was in his teens. Many of them of mysterious provenance, so much so that the house came to contain a sort of reliquary, like those of
John Zaffas and
Ed and Lorraine Warren .
Together, the creaky old house and its collection of antiquities and curios were probably unmatched anywhere. His collection included 17th and 18th-century harpsichords, dueling pistols, Mongol daggers, and old gaming boards.
From the civil war, there were collections of letters from long-dead soldiers. There were brass buttons and wicked-looking bayonets. Battlefield rifles from the period, along with used lead mini balls, perhaps fired and found on some grassy plain.
Perhaps most ominous (and sometimes dubious) was his small collection of Egyptian artifacts, said to be from the Valley of the Dead.
He bought the ghost house when I was ten.
It was on a tree-lined street, on the farthest outskirts of Chicago. It had been long-abandoned and looked like a tall, aging spinster that had somehow defied death, just barely on the edge of dignity; faded, wrinkled and ragged.
Somewhere, dad found tin-type photographs of the house from its earliest days. It sat alone with no other homes in sight, on a dirt road meant for horse and carriage. There were sparse and skinny trees dotting the monochrome landscape around it.
It looked like it belonged in a historical collection somewhere, along with photos of Lincoln and Grant and soldiers littering the gray fields of Gettysburg.
Yes, it was abandoned and broken; not even habitable. But my father was as fearless as he was in love with artifacts and architecture.
To add to the Hollywood creep factor, the house was built upon ground once populated by Native American Potawatomi, Miami, and Illinois tribes. The massive oak trees on the grounds were well over a hundred years old. Just a few blocks away, one of the oldest oak trees in Illinois still stood, famous for the Indian leaders that were said to gather beneath it.
That sure couldn't be good.
But dad probably imagined the voices from its former occupants, walking the same narrow, creaky wooden floors, speaking of Civil War battles and of lives long past. Of the whispering of slaves, hiding within his same house, in basement tunnels and secret rooms. There, in
his station on the underground railroad.
The house also contained a collection of artifacts he had pulled from the rubble of the razed and ruined mansions of the famously rich - those who had rebuilt the city after the Great Fire. They included fireplace mantels, woodworkings, plaques, and other items.
In the grand living room, a massive, ten foot tall wooden candelabra stood in the corner. From a demolished church somewhere, it was so heavy that the floor had to be supported with beams in the basement.
See what I mean? Native Americans, rich barons, religious artifacts, and slaves. Stuff from Egyptian tombs. War relics and weapons.
We should have known.
Although my father loved it, the house didn’t look all that great to my siblings and me. We’d been hoping for a Brady Bunch kind of place – a split-level mid-century modern suburban one, with rust-colored shag carpeting and olive-green new appliances. What child cares about the wonders of lathe and plaster and 14-foot ceilings?
Yes, our new house looked pretty much like a place that could be silhouetted on a Halloween poster. Even if the location scouts didn’t see it.
Besides its size and history, the price was right - and we were a family of seven. Like all good haunted house stories, this one was priced so low that dad couldn’t resist. Umm, hello?
It was filled with leaves and dust and broken glass and rotting wire fixtures. The yard was overgrown with weeds. Layers of paint, decades old, were peeling from the exterior walls. Shingles were missing from the roof and some of the tall windows broken. Pipes were cracked and there was no water. The massive boiler in the basement didn’t work.
None of these obstacles bothered my parents one bit.
And so, my siblings and I explored while the handymen and contractors finished the minimum work so we could move in. I bet they thought it was creepy, too.
When we moved in, it was decided we would share bedrooms. That was fine, since no one wanted to sleep in one of the high-celling rooms by themselves.
It wasn’t long before we learned the house was as haunted as it looked. We didn’t talk about it much, but we all felt it and we all knew it. There were constant noises in the walls – scratching, thumping, bumping. There were often footsteps overhead.
“They’re just animals, probably raccoons,” my father would tell us. “They get inside the walls and they’re hard to get out. It’s normal in these old places.”
Sure, dad.
There was always a collection of mysterious noises past the ceiling, coming from the attic. The attic was an entire third floor. A high-ceilinged space that contained numerous secret rooms and passages outside its inner walls - hiding places of the underground railroad.
An unusually broad, tall window in the attic could be opened and the roof could be traversed in the night to the concealed rooftop rooms under the gables.
None of us – even as adults, would ever be brave enough to explore these hidden areas of the attic. Everyone was afraid of the attic. It didn’t matter if you were 10 years old or 30, it was frightening. Anyone who ventured up the unfinished steps would feel the presence. As if someone else was living up there and that you were uninvited.
Until the day the house was sold, that never changed.
No one wanted to be alone in the house either, especially at night.
Besides the odd noises, there were whispers. Words. Sometimes just beyond the edge of recognition. There were many times when I heard someone speaking to me, whispering, “John…” from over my shoulder. Eventually, I ignored it.
It was one those things you could get used to – if you weren’t alone. And in the 70’s and 80’s we filled the house with all kinds of activity – cats, dogs, friends, and neighbors. We had a green parrot who constantly squawked. There was music from pianos and harpsichords and record players.
In the chaos, the ghosts were probably overwhelmed. But at night, in the silence and darkness, they would return.
As I learn more about hauntings, I realize that what we often accepted as normal was anything but normal. Doors would open by themselves so often that we just ignored it. Items would disappear as if lost – keys, books, coins, and clothes. We accepted it as just another loss among the chaos - shoes, baseballs, and Barbies.
But then we’d find them, days or even years later, in the attic or on the floor of some closet. Or right where we’d thought we’d left them.
We didn’t know what cold spots were then, either. But they were there. In the attic, in the basement, and just passing through a room. We ignored the cold spots, too – the old house had just too many excuses.
Over time, our fear of the basement and attic grew profound. We’d run up or down the stairs, get what we needed, and run back.
We knew.
Once, when we took a flashlight into the far corner of the basement, there was a collection of sticks and rocks and canned food, next to the old coal chute; carefully arranged. It was terrifying to think of someone – or something – alone, in the darkness, arranging those things.
Sometimes, we’d think someone was living in our basement, in the dark. And we would often joke that the unfinished coach house, behind the house, also had someone hiding in residence.
At least that would explain some of the creep factor.
My dad knew more than he let on, though. We came to learn that the house was known, through some anecdotal or historical account, to be haunted.
Visiting with my father in early 2000, he told me that he had been contacted by someone writing a book about America’s most haunted places. He said they asked permission to take photographs of our attic, basement and coach house. He said he turned them down.
But he never said how those writers had come to know what we did.
Until I went to college, I didn’t realize how nice it was to feel safe going to sleep. Or to be alone at home. Because growing up in that old Victorian house, fear was always only a few rooms away.
When my father passed away a few years ago, the estate needed to be sold. So, I bravely moved in, by myself, to begin packing. After a single night of unexplainable noises and whispers, I moved into a tiny bedroom in what we called the servants’ quarters.
At night, I locked the bedroom door. I had forgotten what it was to be afraid of a house. But when I came back alone, the house decided to remind me.
Day and night, the house tried to scare me. Doors would slam with angry force. On more than one night, I awoke to the slamming of cabinets in the kitchen, banging over and over.
Even in daylight, it kept up. There were sharp, loud smashing sounds in certain rooms. Noise like an entire china cabinet had toppled. Or that a stack of ceramic tiles had been dropped from the ceiling. I’d rush into the room - and everything would be normal.
Of course.
At times like that, I’d call my sister. “They’re at it again. It’s so annoying.”
“Seriously? Just tell them to stop,” she’d say.
Some nights, there would be a persistent knocking on my bedroom ceiling, which wasn’t even below the attic – but rather beneath the hidden rooms on the roof. I’d pop in my earbuds and listen to music, ignoring them.
But the whispering voices – they were the worst.
Just when I’d forget all about the creepiness and simply open a door, the voices would whisper. Not just one voice, but many. It wasn’t the swoosh of wind or a creaky hinge, but actual whispered voices. Though indiscernible, they sounded like a faint audio track of 10 people whispering at once.
On a few especially bad nights, I almost dialed 911.
Both times, the attic sounded like it was hosting a deathmatch event. There were crashes and muted voices. Loud bangs and thuds that sounded like people were wrestling. And it would go on and on. Once, I stood at the bottom of the attic stairs and recorded the sounds.
My sister and I decided that it was simply impossible that a fight was really happening in the attic. So, I would shout up at them from steps, demanding they stop. And they did.
But it was always something.
Like when I stepped out the back door to get something from my car, only to find that the back door had been locked – with a key – from the inside. I stood there, in the freezing winter air, cursing at them and wishing I was back in my safe apartment back in Florida.
On the last day before we moved out, my sister and I stood at the top of the front stairs. She suddenly turned her head asked me, “Did you change the tune of the doorbell?”
“What? Why would I do that? And I don’t think that’s even possible.”
“Shhh. Did you hear that?” She whispered. “It’s a piano.”
I didn’t hear anything. After a while, we resumed packing the box. A few minutes later, I heard it. Someone was clearly playing a piano downstairs.
My sister and I knew there were no pianos in the house. They had long been moved.
I couldn’t wait to pack that last box and leave. When we walked out the door for the last time, we both wondered what stories the new owners would have to tell.
Just like I did, here today.
