SEPTEMBER 6th, 2017
By LANA CARBON & JOHN LILIES
[Lana] We don’t get nearly enough opportunities to visit with our friends as we would like to, so when we get the chance, we jump on it. The instance that we would like to share with you on this particular occasion was from a 2016 visit with a couple of our closest friends, Nataly Videl and Telly Gray.
It had been a while since we had gone to see them and the night started off wonderfully, as it always does, with margaritas, snacks, and catching up on all of the happenings since our last get-together. Little did we know that this night would take an unexpected twist. Telly and Nataly had obviously been under a ton of pressure and they had hit the boiling point while we were there (the blessing and the curse of being so comfortable around each other). The evening became quite emotional, leaving everyone feeling a little awkward and a bit embarrassed. We are not writing this to add to that embarrassment but to simply describe the intense state of the setting we found ourselves in before continuing with the events that followed.
We were hanging out in the basement that night and Telly had gone upstairs to try to calm down while Nataly stayed with us and, despite being visibly shaken, tried to play hostess. It was during this time that the odd event happened. Over Nataly’s shoulder, I saw a figure walk down the stairs and turn into a doorway to the left (my left as I was watching from where I sat). I assumed that it must have been Telly, since there were only the four of us plus their puppy in the house. Normally I wouldn’t have thought any more about it but, since I was concerned about how our friend was feeling after the earlier confrontation, I kept partial attention on the doorway he had gone through. Approximately 10-15 minutes passed and while Telly had definitely not emerged from the room at the bottom of the stairs, I was shocked to see him walking down the very stairway I had been watching so carefully. This time, he came down the steps and went the opposite way at the bottom into the room to my right. After only a couple of moments, I saw Telly exit that room and ascend back upstairs. While I was slightly baffled, I figured that I must have somehow simply missed Telly leaving the first room and returning up the one flight to the floor above.
The remainder of the night passed with a few tears and some heartfelt apologies but was otherwise uneventful until John and I climbed into the car to head home. It was then that John asked me an unexpected question... had I noticed anything odd?
[John] Okay, so these are incredibly dear friends and there have been some strange things to occur in their house, so upon retrospect this experience is not necessarily alarming, but certainly adds to the mystery of their home.
To set the stage a bit, Nataly, Lana, and I were sitting at a table in the basement, a few feet ahead of the staircase. Lana was facing the staircase, Nataly’s back was to the stairs, and I was between them with my right side to the stairs. So, when Lana mentions the room to his left, this room is in fact at the bottom and to the right of the staircase, behind Nataly. Similarly, when Lana mentions the room to his right, that room is at the bottom and to the left of the staircase (directly opposite the other room). Clear as mud? Great. Moving on…
John's artistic skills at work again. Always makes me think of The Dead Files... "Amy, is this what you saw?"
As we were sitting there, knowing that Telly was upstairs and it was only me, Lana and Nataly at the table downstairs and there were no other people in the house, I assumed it was Telly when I saw a tall man walk down the stairs and turn right, entering the bedroom there. I knew it was a man. I knew it was tall and skinny man. I heard the footsteps come down the stairs with the man. I knew it was Telly. I looked towards the bedroom as he walked in and I saw his figure. I didn’t continue to look though, as I a) didn’t want to intrude on Telly’s privacy, and b) felt a bit funky about this man. Though I was telling myself nothing was strange, I had a feeling that something was strange about him. For as much as I thought it was Telly, something in me knew it wasn’t. However, with no reason to legitimately think otherwise and also not wanting to break the conversation and raise the hairs on anyone’s arms, I remained silent about my experience and carried on chatting with Lana and Nataly (neither of whom appeared to have noticed anything).
Not long after, Telly came down the stairs. This time, I knew for certain it was him because his footsteps were heavier and I looked straight at him as he walked down the stairs and went into the room to the left of the staircase. Nataly asked if Telly had just come down, as she turned slightly to look behind her, and I told her that yes he had just gone into the freezer room. I glanced at the opposite room, wondering then what I had actually witnessed earlier. I stared into the dark room but not for long, because I was also afraid of what (who) I might see; I felt like there was still someone in there and actually kind of felt like he was watching us. Telly exited the freezer room and went back upstairs and while my head still tried to process what was happening, I continued the conversation I was having with Lana & Nataly.
The rest of the night proceeded without incident and we ended our visit with lots of hugs and loving words, and big puppy hugs too.
Lana and I headed home and as we drove, we talked through the events of the evening but it wasn’t until we were about 15-20 minutes or more into our drive home, that I asked Lana if he had noticed anything or felt anything a bit strange in the house while we were there. The look he gave me is one I cannot describe but wish I could. He did not hide the fact that he had seen something and my question immediately made him realize that I had experienced something, so we began to share our stories.
This wasn’t the first time that something strange had happened in Nataly & Telly’s house. Since they moved in, Nataly always heard the really faint sounds of music playing but with no source that they could identify. Going outside of the house did not provide any answers, that is – the music was not coming from outside and faintly being heard inside the house. There was no source of the music within the house so they still have not been able to figure that one out. Among other experiences, they entered their bedroom one day to discover that their very heavy bed had been shifted to a diagonal position and neither of them had moved it. We tried to rationalize it by saying maybe one of the dogs had moved it but as strong as those dogs were, I have no idea how one or both together, could have moved that bed. After returning from vacation one time, they found a flashlight inside a ceiling light fixture. This was a flashlight that had been missing for a long time but they came home from being away for a couple of weeks, and as they turned on the light, the shadow being created forced their gaze upwards and they climbed up and reached into the light fixture and pulled out the flashlight. Unless someone entered the home to play some really strange and random prank (who and why?) then we have no idea how to explain that one.
Other things would happen too, like one night when I was staying over and was in bed listening to some music and not yet asleep or even falling asleep, both of my feet were gently squeezed. I was lying on my back and it was as though someone had placed a hand on each foot, cupping over my toes with their fingers pointing down towards my ankles, and gently squeezed and let go. I immediately stopped my music and sat up, trying to figure who that was, why they would do that, and how they had come into the room without me seeing them. The only people in the house were me, Telly and Nataly. The two dogs were home also. The room had been in darkness so I turned on my phone flashlight and shone it around the room but no one was there. The door was on my left and the bed was against the wall, so there was no way that I could have missed someone entering and exiting the room. I even checked at the end of the bed to see if the dogs had been in the room without me noticing the entire time… and then quickly laughed and questioned how they could have grown opposable thumbs in that time to squeeze my feet like that, even if they had been in the room. After not coming up with any explanations for the sensation, I lied back down – on my side, put my music back on, and promptly curled up into the fetal position while pulling the covers over my head. The other experience I always had there was the sense of someone watching me in the washroom… not of actually standing in the washroom and watching me, but the sense of someone standing outside the washroom, by the master bedroom door, and looking into the washroom. So, even when I would stay at the house on my own to take care of the dogs, I always made sure to close and lock the washroom door even to brush my teeth, because I felt creeped out by the feeling of someone watching me.
To be clear, there has never been a bad experience in the house and it has never felt like a bad ‘presence’ or anything like that. These strange things just happen and we can’t quite figure them out.
Nataly and Telly have now moved from that house to forge a new life path. Nataly has had strange experiences in other homes she has lived in, so we wonder if she will continue to have encounters in the future…?
