Short Story: Tracee Ford


I am going to let you in on a little secret.  The reason I write paranormal is because I’ve experienced the paranormal.  I am going to recount for you chronologically what I’ve experienced and then you’ll see what has made me who I am today.
As a very young child, some of my earliest memories are of feelings that I had or dreams.  Now that I look back on it, I understand everything clearly.  Up until I was in the third grade, I lived in a house with an unknown past.  My mother always told me that the deed didn’t even have a date on it because the construction of the dwelling was unknown.  It wasn’t a fancy house and to be quite honest I had a love/hate relationship with the place.  It was the first home I ever knew, which is why I think I loved it, but there were times I wanted to escape from it, especially at night.
I hated trying to sleep.  My bedroom was in the back of the house right over the laundry room.  During the day things weren’t so bad, but when it was time for bed I couldn’t control my anxiety.  I screamed and cried sometimes, begging not to go to sleep.  I couldn’t put it all into words then because, of course, as a child our understanding of everything is so limited.  All I knew was that things happened to me when I slept; things that frightened me.
I used to dream from the time I put my head on the pillow until the sun came up.  Everyone says that’s not possible, but that’s not how I see it.  I had two closets in my room on opposite sides of the room.  The closet that my clothing was in didn’t scare me, but the closet at the end of my bed terrified me.  A witch lived in it.  Yes, a witch.  Now remember, I was a child and the only thing I could relate to what I saw was a witch.  I know now it was either a spirit or a demon.  She tormented me in my dreams.  There were times I was awake and saw her standing at the end of the room watching me.  She always stood right beside the closet door.  I don’t remember her approaching me but just the fact she was in the room and visible was enough to make me want to run out of the room screaming, which I did many times, by the way.  She was average size, dark clothing, long gray hair, and the ugliest face I’d ever seen in my life.  She haunted me, no doubt.  To be honest, just writing this and thinking about her makes me a little sick.
Now, how do you tell that to your parents or adults what you’re seeing and experiencing?  My mom asked me recently why I didn’t tell her.  I, myself, didn’t understand it so how could I explain it to someone else?  Often adults pass these sort of confessions off to dreams or just fear; “Oh, you’re just afraid of the dark.”  Yes, I was and for good reason.
I can tell you what I saw and what I felt was as real as I am.  Of course, in today’s times I would have been diagnosed with some sort of mental disorder.  However, I have two degrees in psychology and I know I wasn’t crazy or hallucinating.
I don’t think it was a coincidence that I was sick as a child either; physically ill all of the time.  At least, I was sick when we lived in that house.  I was always having some sort of illness.  Trust me, the world of the paranormal melts right into our current state of being and things happen, good or bad.  Some individuals experience physical illness.  Others experience mental breakdowns.  It depends on the haunting as well as the person experiencing the haunting.
The other thing I remember is having vivid dreams about what I called “no-eyed rabbits.”  As I write I can still seem them quite clearly in my head.  I remember that there were several of them standing in a circle around the fire.  They chanted and now I realize they were wearing hoods and had horns.  As a child, I could only relate the way they looked to rabbits with big tall ears.  I called them “no-eyed rabbits” because to me their eyes weren’t normal.  They looked like onions cut in half; no color or expression.  They held staffs in their hands and stood around an enormous fire.  Sometimes, in my dreams, they chased after me, but most of the time I was just trapped running around them begging for my mom or to leave or to wake up.
The basement in that house was a place I knew not to go.  Don’t ask me why, I just knew it was no place for me.  The few times I went down there I felt a distinct feeling of unwelcome.  I hated the basement sometimes as much as I hated my room.  It was just off of the kitchen.  When I went into the kitchen I sometimes felt like whatever was in the basement had made it’s way to the main part of the house.  That feeling that something or someone is watching you.
Like I said though, it was a love/hate relationship with the house.  In fact, I sobbed when we moved out of the house.  However, when we left, there were no more nightmares about the rabbits or the witch.  They stayed with the house.
My guess, now that I’m grown up, is that they were attached to the house from the very beginning.  I guess I could research who has lived in the home, but honestly, until a few years ago the experiences never made sense.
After we moved out a friend of mine that I went to school with moved into the house with her parents.  Ironically, the back of the house caught on fire.  What was once my room and the laundry room caught on fire, destroying the back of the house.  Coincidence?  I don’t know.  What I do know is that spirits can be pretty powerful and cause things to happen.  Would I stake my life on the possibility that the witch caused the fire?  No, but I’m certainly not closed down to it.
So let’s fast forward, shall we? In December of 2011 I sank into a very deep depression after the death of my aunt. I had become atheist prior to that and I had no hope of an afterlife. So, when she passed away, I saw it as final, which nearly drove me crazy. However, I met a wonderful holistic physician who introduced me to a very important vitamin regiment that would help my body reset itself. This still didn’t temper my intense fear of death.
I sat in the waiting area of his office one day and beside me lay a book. Its title: Soul Proof (http://www.amazon.com/Soul-Proof-Mark-R-Pitstick/dp/0966141962). I brushed it off for whatever reason that time, but it wasn’t long before the dreams began. 

The first I remember was about my grandfather (maternal). I could see him standing at the top of concrete stairs. He was dressed in his gray pants and a light-weight button-up shirt. I remember being a child and running up the stairs to him, leaping in his arms and saying, “Please, Papa, don’t go. I don’t want you to go.”  He said, “I have to go for a little while.  Go to Kat now. You’ll see me again, just go to Kat.”  Kat is my eldest aunt who had been dead for a year.  I turned and saw her; she looked like she did when I was a small child and I begged again for my grandfather not to leave me.  When I woke, I could still smell his Old Spice cologne. I had no doubt I’d encountered his presence, but my limited faith at that time didn’t allow me to process it.

Other dreams were of my aunt; her touch on my forehead and assuring me that everything was alright and that she was in a wonderful place. Again, the doubting Thomas I was at that time, wouldn’t allow me to embrace what was really going on.  Another dream, my paternal grandmother, who died long before I was born, came to me. She had passed away tragically in a car accident when my dad wasn’t even out of high school.  She told me that she was always with me and that she loved me. I remember her face and how beautiful she was. I remember hearing her laughing and saying how much she loved watching me grow up.

After all of this, I went back to my healer again and sat in his waiting area. This time I opened up Soul Proof and read the introduction. I couldn’t put the book down. I asked to borrow it. I know it might sound clique, but it changed my life. After reading the book, everything made sense.  The struggles I had endured throughout the years.  The fight I had within myself made total sense and the conflict was over.  It all fell right into place.  I have never felt such utter peace in my entire life.  Peace that cannot be bought or explained.  Peace like no other. I made a conscious decision to change my life and put a more positive spin on my attitude. It was a defining moment in my life that put me on a completely different path.

In early April my husband’s cousin died of cancer. He was young and vibrant and everyone loved him. I never personally met him. However, as I stood in the line at his viewing, he definitely made sure I understood who he was. At first I thought my husband was talking to me. Turns out it wasn’t my husband at all.
Now this is where you can either decide whether I’m crazy or not.  This dead person made an effort to communicate with me. Yes, I know it sounds like I’m schizophrenic, but I assure you I’m perfectly health and very mentally sound. I wasn’t sure what was happening. The next day at his funeral, it worsened. I felt like someone was screaming in my ear. He begged me to comfort his mother and to send messages to his loved ones. Because I didn’t understand what was happening, I didn’t entertain any of this, but when we were standing at the graveside I could literally feel this man’s presence.  During the service I felt his agony and grief and found myself losing emotional control. I didn’t know this man. Why was I crying? I’ll tell you why: because I felt his emotion and empathized. In my mind I told him to crossover and that there were others waiting to help him. I didn’t hear him anymore that day.
I went to a person right after the funeral that I knew could help me and that’s precisely what she did. She helped me understand what was happening and that I have an ability that I am still learning to use and understand.  I don’t question it or flaunt it or advertise it or talk about it unless I’m asked, but it’s there; always a part of me and always will be.
Since this encounter I’ve had regular communication with many of those who’ve passed on from my grandmother, who is truly with me at all times, to my husband’s relatives. I am also in constant communication with the Creator and I make sure I take time to thank Him and to commune with him. I also have a direct like to what I call, spirit guides (the Christian faith calls them angels). They help me and guide me and teach me; they comfort me when I’m sad and they help me stay focused when I need to. An entirely new world opened to me when I decided to change my life and walk down a positive path and I don’t regret one decision I’ve made in this new life.
When this happened to me, I rewrote my novel, Between Worlds: The Fine Line and took on a more opened-minded approach to solving spiritual problems and confronting spiritual battles.  In fact the still small voice made it very clear that in order for my book to be published I would have to change the content. So, I did and I let the Divine take over. I wasn’t disappointed. PDMI Publishing was the answer the Creator sent to me.


Since I have discovered the inner self, I formed a paranormal investigation team, The Southern Ohio Ghost Hunters. However, the first ghost hunt went terribly wrong. The initial premise of forming such a team was to examine local legends and lore. So, me, my husband, and another couple went to two graveyards and a bridge in Ross County. We took photos, audio recordings, and then returned to the house and analyzed them. Before we even arrived home, the strange occurrences started. Something tapped on the glass in the back of my husband’s truck. I felt uneasy. When we went to the bridge, my spirit guides told me not to get out of the truck. At one of the graveyards they told me to stay away from a certain part of the property. However, the other guy that was with us, didn’t and then came running back toward us saying something was chasing him. Like I said, we did things all wrong.
The next week I encountered phenomenon that I wasn’t comfortable with at all. The first thing was I stood in my bedroom and felt like someone was watching me. The night of the hunt, I couldn’t stop dreaming. I dreamed about the graveyards and so many other things, it isn’t even possible for me to recount it all.
That hunt happened on a Saturday night. I don’t remember if it was Sunday or Monday morning, but I was awakened by the dog rubbing up against the bed. He is really big and when he rubs against anything, it shakes. So, I got up and went into the computer room. I told my husband the dog woke me up and he said, “He couldn’t have. He’s outside.” RED FLAG!
That same day I lay down with my husband for a nap and something picked up a portion of the blanket off of my leg and dropped it back onto my leg. Now I was concerned.
The next thing that happened is that I was sitting up sleeping one night because my acid reflux was acting up. I was in bed propped against pillows. I dreamed of a man. I saw him from the knees up. He stood on the other side of the bed (where my husband sleeps). His skin, gray, and his build frail. It reminded me of a Holocaust victim. He reached over toward me and I woke myself up smacking his hand away.
Friday night, I am home sitting in my chair with the laptop and I’m typing something, can’t remember what. I feel intense heat from the top of my head to the soles of my feet. I cannot move. I cannot speak. I cannot move my eyes. I feel suffocated and trapped. My husband is outside on the porch. I start praying. No relief. At that point, I realized I hadn’t had any contact with my spirit guides that entire week. I was alone. I know now that I was being taught a very important lesson and that they had to stand back and let me learn. They hadn’t left me, but I know they were told to keep their hands off.
That entire I felt something on me. I could walk down the hallway and felt like something was going to crawl up my back. Very creepy!
The sensation left. When I told my husband about it, he didn’t seem to care. The next morning I researched the hot and cold sensations. I was under the impression, from my previous encounters, that the cold sensation meant spiritual activity, possibly demonic. As I read, I found that intense heat indicated demonic encounters. My heart sank and I felt sick. I had allowed this thing to enter into my life. I suddenly felt that whatever followed me to my home was picked up in the second cemetery due to my team member’s lack of restraint. Then I felt that it had been attached to him all along. I text him and my other friend to see if anything was happening with them. The guy text me back saying the activity was heightened for him. I suggested that we do a cleansing at my house because of what was happening. I didn’t get a response.
Sunday we went to my cousin-in-law’s to swim. Even in her house I felt like someone was watching me, so whatever was with me was following me; it had nothing to do with my house. While I was sitting at her house, the guy who started all of this called me and told me he didn’t want to “hear about a cleansing.” This immediately told me he liked whatever activity was happening to him. RED FLAG.
When we arrived home, I took a shower and when I stepped out I felt something standing in the doorway leering at me. I got mad. I started shouting at it to get out and that I didn’t care what it was or why it was here, but it needed to go back to where it came from; it wasn’t welcome in my home and I wasn’t going to put up with it anymore. Immediately, it left. I heard my spirit guides again. They told me how sorry they were that I’d experienced those things. I promised myself I’d never do another hunt again, at least not without some precautionary measures, which leads me to my final part of this post.
I took a new job in July of 2012 and was pleasantly surprised to learn that one of my employees was also a paranormal investigator. We talked about my previous issues and how apprehensive I was about investigating again. Nevertheless, we received a call that a couple needed help at their home. They were going through a tough time and the spirit in the house was starting to physically harm them. I’m going to call her LW here to protect her privacy, but she talked to me about going because I shared with her what I could hear and how I could communicate with the dead.
I will admit openly that I was fearful that something would come home with me again or bad things would happen, but I went. My spirit guides and the Creator encouraged me saying, “You’re helping.” So my husband and I met LW and the other team members at the house. When I walked in, I really didn’t feel much. I felt anxious because I was afraid for myself, not for the couple that lived there.
I went into the bathroom to be alone for a moment. I was still very unsure, so I prayed. The still small voice said, “I’m using you to help this family. Don’t be afraid, just be mindful and reverent.” When I walked out of the bathroom, a bedroom was right across and as I walked down the hallway I got the feeling that something was trying to crawl up on my back again. Then I heard my spirit guide say, “Don’t be afraid. We’re here to protect you.”
I walked back into the kitchen where the others were gathered and the man of the house gave my husband and I tour of the basement, but before he did I asked him if there had been any activity in the room across from the bathroom. He told me that his wife had been drug off the bed and that he had been attack, with scratches left behind; three distinct scratches. I told him I wanted to see the basement before I made a determination, but before that, LW did a prayer of protection over the entire group there and a detachment prayer so that we would leave with no unwanted guests.
When I walked into the basement I couldn’t feel anything unusual. There was one room, however, that I couldn’t go near. I felt like if I did, I might suffocate. It was the room right under the bedroom where the activity had been the most recent. I was also told that the dog, an animal that they had had for a very long time, sudden started urinating in the floor for no reason, then suddenly this stopped. I explained that the dog was in predator mode, so whatever was in the house was powerful enough to scare the dog.
In the weight room, there were windows and I felt the presence of several tribal people. I knew they were Native Americans. The owner told me a tree had either fallen or been cut down and it seemed that the activity heightened when that happened. He also indicated that it was possible that the land the house was on was burial property for the Indians that lived in the area. He said there was a mound on the property but he has never disturbed it. I told him that the tribal people didn’t mean him harm. In fact they protect the land as they swore they would do. They make sure that the land is safe and that is their job. I told him that there were several that were wondering what we were doing, but they were more fascinated than distressed. I explained that what I felt was very distinct honor and pride, but not vengeful or jealous pride. It was pride that their belief brought them back to this land that they used to occupy and that they are the guardians forever. This seemed to make the man of the house feel better.
Baby monitors had been set up before we went downstairs. The team said they heard what sounded like a screech. We explained we didn’t hear anything. I told the team that it made me feel uneasy to go into the basement corner room. We split up into groups. The man of the house, his wife, and two of the team members stayed upstairs. LW, me, and my husband went downstairs. Both groups had equipment: cameras, EVP’s, other technology to help us communicate.
When we went downstairs, the uneasiness was gone. As we walked around I kept hearing someone saying something, but it was very muffled at first. “Need help” finally came through. I asked aloud, which I usually don’t do but because it was being audio taped it did, “What do you want us to help you with?” The short of it was that there was a boy, around the age of seven or eight, who fell from the tree that the man of the house cut down. He broke his neck when he fell and didn’t even know he was dead. He made it clear that there was something in the house that told him he wasn’t allowed to leave. He lit up the EVP and the flashlight to help us. He said he saw a lot of other people with us. The picture in this blog shows several things. The before picture and the after picture. Orbs everywhere. The little boy identified my grandmother and a little boy with my husband, who we both knew was his grandmother’s brother who died when he was a child. He said he wanted to play with the little boy and wanted my grandmother to cross over with him. I explained that if he looked hard enough he could see his mother. In fact, there was one time when he said, “I want my mom.” I nearly lost it. It took everything I had not to sob.

In my head I was able to see what this little boy looked like; blonde bowl cut hair, colonial style clothing and he knew of the tribal people. He said that his family liked them and they were good to his family. Before he crossed over he saw them standing outside of the house. I explained to him that once he crossed he could come and go as he wished. That he had to check in first.
The way I see it, we all make the journey to the other side. Sometimes we need help doing this. Sometimes it happens right at the moment of death. Other times, especially in cases where life is taken quickly, it takes more help; sometimes from someone like me. Other times the spirit guides can help, but with this poor little boy, he was being oppressed by the other source in the house.

Finally, after talking to this little guy for over an hour, he crossed over and when he did I heard a voice say “Thank you.” I knew it was his mom.
We went back upstairs.  Before we went into the bedroom for our final piece of research, we sat at the kitchen table, me, the man of the house, his wife, LW, and my husband.  The two other team members went downstairs to do some research.  As we sat at the table I felt the presence of an older woman.  He told me that his grandmother died in the home.  I knew she had attached herself to him.  She had checked in on the other side, but had been sent back to him as a spirit guide, just as my grandmother had been assigned to me.  I described to him her characteristics and general fiery attitude.  He and his wife both decided that I must be seeing her. She was very protective of him.  In the mind time I heard, “That old woman means nothing to me.”  The demon decided it was time to talk.  The impressions I got were “steal,” “take,” “destroy.”  This demon’s mission was to steal and take the man’s marriage and possibly his life.  The man didn’t understand why and I told him that these creatures don’t have to have a reason, they just do.  I explained that they feed of of negativity and that they thrive on turmoil.  He and his wife confirmed that they had been having trouble and that they argued a lot.
Then the true reason came out.  My husband said, “Did you have something bad happen to you when you were a kid?” The man explained that he was abandoned and his grandparents raised him.  He admitted that he was holding all of that resentment and he was raised Catholic and didn’t understand anything anymore.  He was trying to open his mind spiritually but was struggling.  I explained that this is what was probably feeding the entity.
To make a long story a little shorter, when we went into the bedroom to do our investigation, the demon pulled my hair.  There were very cold breezes in the room.  LW and I had to pray constant protection around us and we rebuked it many, many times.  The man of the house was just getting angrier, which is why it wouldn’t leave.  And sometimes, it takes more than one time of doing something like this to clean the space.  However, we didn’t get any resolve that night.  When we stood in our circle prayer, we heard noises in the hallway, and then we all felt it standing in the corner of the room.  We prayed our hearts out and we also ended with a detaching prayer of protection.
Nothing went home with me, I am thankful to report. I have also not heard of anymore situations at the house we investigated.  I have been in contact with the little boy once more.  He came through to me the day after the investigation. I was in the hallway at my home and I felt him hug my legs and thank me.  In my mind I told him that it was my pleasure and that he was free to visit again, but he needed to get more familiar with the other side for now.  I also felt his mom’s presence and knew she was the one who had come back with him to urge him to show his appreciation, just like any good parent would do.
I love my life and I love my gift. I am thankful every day that I discovered the light within myself and I work very hard to show that light to others. I created my own YouTube series to recount my experiences. If you are interested in learning more, please visit my blog, http://traceeford.wordpress.com, to find the archived series, Bumps in the Night: My Own Tales of the Paranormal. You can also visit my YouTube Channel (http://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2O27s3YyDjvpVwKWE6kHJQ) to watch the series taken straight from the blog archive.

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Comments

  1. Thank you so much for being on my blog! Sounds awesome. I think it would be cool to have your gift. I had a blast reading your post, and I am going to be checking out your youtube videos.

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