Ghost Story #2 - "Mommy...MOMMY!!!"

During the three years we spent in Edmonton, Alberta, from 1997-2000, we lived in a town house on the west side of the city. This particular story I'm about to share definitely wasn't the only paranormal occurrence in that home, but for me, it was the scariest and subsequently the most memorable!

I was working at Imperial Oil at the time and we participated in a program that was called 'Earned Day Off' which meant we worked an extra 15 minutes a day to get one Friday off every month. It was great...it meant that with regular long weekends included, we were guaranteed two long weekends a month! This incident took place on one of those EDOs while I was by myself at home.

After sending my husband to work and getting my daughter fed and off to school by 8:30am, I went back upstairs to relax in bed with my book and a huge mug of coffee before trying to motivate myself to take on the day of cleaning I had planned. As I lay propped up on my pillows, I could hear the sounds of life outside my window dwindling down to just the singing of a few birds. We lived in a cul de sac of sorts in a gated community, so there wasn't a lot of traffic even during the busier times of day. It was almost 9:30am, so it was very quiet, void of the sounds of children's chatter and their parents' vehicles as they drove off to work.

Suddenly, there was this booming sound of someone pounding on the front door and the repeated ringing of the doorbell at the same time! My initial feeling was fear and the thought of someone trying to break in that froze me to my bed. For a few seconds, I quietly waited for it to stop and for 'whoever' it was to just go away. Instead, the screaming of a terrified, possibly hurt child was added to the frenzy. "Mommy!! Mommy!! Please!! Hurry Mommy!" Instinctively, I whipped the covers off of me and jumped out of bed faster than I have EVER moved before, ran down the stairs, two or more at a time terrified of what I was going to be opening the door to.

The front door was just a few steps to the right of the bottom of the stairs. As I hit the bottom, I spun round to the right and as soon as I had the deadbolt unlocked and my hand was on the doorknob, it all stopped. I flung the door open, jumped out onto the step, then ran down to the sidewalk.....there was NO ONE there...ANYWHERE!!! My heart felt like it was literally pounding in my throat...I was expecting to find my daughter covered in blood on our doorstep! I was beyond terrified...but there was absolutely NOBODY anywhere around...either in their vehicles, walking by or on their front steps. I quickly walked down both ways on the sidewalk, looking for this hurt child until I realized I was walking around the neighborhood in my night gown and bare feet...like a crazy woman! I came back up and sat on my front steps for almost 20 minutes, just to be sure that no one was wandering around hurt...and to try to somehow process what had just happened.

Needless to say, I was pretty damn shaken for the rest of the day, but I had no clue that this type of thing was going to become a normal occurrence during our short time living in that building.