Church Man

Name:            nichole
Email:           lilangel163@home.com
Location:        Baltimore, Maryland 
Type:            Ghost
Date:            Sunday, October 01, 2000
Time:            04:59 PM

On the night after Thanksgiving in 1998 I went over my friend Cassidy's house. After a second dinner, we met up with her friends to go to the Dairy Queen for some ice cream. It was dark out, but not late, probably only around 8:00. The neighborhood she lives in connects some of the main streets with cut-ways. We walked about 2 blocks to get to their house. As we walked off their porch Danni flashed us a cigeratte. We were only about 13, and knew the dangers of smoking, but it was rare that we could ever get one.

The shortest way to get to the Dairy Queen is to walk through the Our Lady of Hope Church field and then across the main street. The church faces the opposite way we were walking, but there is an entrance in the back. We were walking across their field, which had nothing unusual about it. Every spring there was a carnival and the children who went to the school up the hill played there often. There's a little dirt path from people going through on their bikes. The grass had just been cut so we were walking about 50 feet from the entrance of the church.

I don't know what made me look at the church or why it was even me. We were all talking and something told me to look at over. I don't remember stopping or even walking, just looking at the church. There stood a man. He wasn't transparent, he was more opaque. I don't remember any characteristics of his face, but he was an older man. He was wearing an older looking jacket with buttons down the front and what seemed to be corderory pants. He also had a floppy fisherman's hat. He actually reminded me of my grandfather. Jess, Danni and Cassidy all realized I wasn't talking anymore I was staring. Finally I spoke. Without taking my eyes off the man I asked if everyone saw what I was seeing. Danni said yeah that man standing there right? She said it as plain as day, like we were talking about the color blue. None of us were scared, probably more shocked than anything. I just stood there looking at him. He looked sad and lost. To enter the church you walk through glass doors and then through other doors, so I couldn't tell if he was actually in the church.

Cassidy's voice brought me back to reality. She said come on guys lets go. I don't know if she didn't see him and thought we were crazy, or just wanted to get out of there. I don't remember talking any more about the man until we were safely across the street and in the parking lot of Dairy Queen. Jess said hey Danni, do you remember that woman who told us there was a ghost at the church.

We ate our ice cream and decided to hold a seance. We were 13, how much could we know about a seance? But we went to CVS and bough white candles figuring they would represent peace. We even walked by the church again, but he wasn't there. We sat on Cassidy's back porch and lit the candles. We all held hands and I said "We'd don't come to hurt or bother anyone. We saw a man tonight at the Our Lady of Hope Church. We were wondering if we could find out more about him." Then we all sat there looking into the flames of the candle and everything came to us. We found out that his name was Bob, he was 76 years old, had a few children, his wife was still living and he worked for the church.

We never spoke of that night again, and I don't know why. It was this summer when Cassidy was spending the night and my boyfriend was over that we started on ghost stories. We told him about our night. His mom knew a lady who used to go to the church and the school and when he mentioned a man named Bob, she looked at him confused and said " how would you know Bob? He died before you were born."

I don't consider myself to be psychic or anything, I think that might just have been luck. But this entire summer, whenever my boyfriend would want to drive down Edgemere, I would get an uneasy feeling. I kept picturing a lady coming out of the woods around one of the turns in the curvy roads. She has tangled long dark brown hair and her face is bloody. She stops in front of the car and says help me please. I don't know whether this has ever happened or if it ever will, but I hope I'm not there when it does.