Thriller Thursday

I have a confession to make. I was planning on skipping this week’s Freaky Friday post. I figured with Thanksgiving and Black Friday and all of the to-ing and fro-ing, it wouldn’t be missed.  Sarah actually suggested, because I’m finishing up Mary 20, that I just repost the Freaky Friday from last year about paranormal happenings on Black Friday. And, actually, I was going to do that. Until…today.

Thanksgiving Day.  A day not usually set aside for ghosts…except at my house.

My first call was from my son-in-law who lives in Texas. I could tell he was driving and the whole family was in the car because I heard the sweet calls of “Hi Grandma.” (That just melts my heart.) My son-in-law confessed that they were already listening to Christmas Carols and he told me there was one Christmas Carol where the lyrics were strange to him and he thought for sure I would know the answer.  (Because, um, I’m strange? I wondered.)

No, that wasn’t it at all.  It was the song, “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” and the lyric that bothered him was, “There’ll be scary ghost stories…”  He admitted that I was the paranormal expert in the family. (Actually, that could be code for I’m strange.) He wondered if there were some strange traditions that he didn’t know about.

I told him the I knew he was aware of scary ghost stories and I mentioned Dicken’s A Christmas Carol. (Those weren’t Boy Scouts showing up when the bell tolled.) He was astonished. He hadn’t even thought of that – problem solved.

The next call was from my son, Nathan.  He called us from work to wish us a Happy Thanksgiving.  He works at a great place called Murphey School in Dover, Delaware.  The Murphey School was founded in 1922 by Sanford Murphey to foster children who would have otherwise been neglected.  He named it for his mother, Elizabeth Murphey, who was a great example to him.

With over ninety years of history, the Murphey school also has some stories of otherworldly things happening within its walls.

Today, when Nathan called he explained that he’d gotten in early to work and he was the only member of the staff in the house.  He started working on paperwork and then heard noises coming from the other room.  He could hear voices and people moving around. He called another staff member to see who else was in the house. She assured him that he was the only one there. He got up and opened the door to the other part of the house and, sure enough, no one else was there.  We both decided that the Murpheys were probably having Thanksgiving dinner together.

Finally, (and this is what prompted me to write) my son, Dave, and his girlfriend came to Thanksgiving dinner. We ate late because they had first Thanksgiving with her family and second Thanksgiving was with us.  We had a great time and I don’t think we even talked about ghosts or scary things. (Which, I admit, is unusual.)  After dinner, we were packing up some leftovers for them to take and we were all standing around my butcher block island, still laughing and talking.

Suddenly David, who was directly on the other side of the island from me, twitched. Almost like he was shivering. Then he twitched again. Finally, he turned around to look behind him.

“What?” I asked.

He looked back at me, his face had a slightly concerned look on it.

“Someone just touched me,” he said.

“Well, the dogs are right there next to you,” I explained.

He shook his head. “No, I felt someone’s hand touch my shoulder blade and give me a little push,” he replied. Then he looked over his shoulder again. “Freaky.”

Yeah. Freaky!

Happy Friday!

Like what you read?  Find more stories by Terri Reid here.