If someone tells you a ghost story or a tale of frightful events that they swear really happened to themselves or to those they are close to how do you react? Do you believe them or do you immediately begin to analyze the story in your mind trying to find how the deception, the ruse, could have been effectively pulled off?

I must confess to sometimes finding myself skeptical of the supernatural and I do always look for a logical reason to explain occurrences. ere are times though that I am completely flabbergasted and unsure how something could every be explained away convincingly. I sincerely believe that all stories have a grain of truth and it is merely a matter of finding that kernel to see how far (or not) things have spiraled.

Despite my natural skepticism I have always loved to be scared and thoroughly spooked out of my mind. I have gone on a few ghost hunts and seem some strange sights that made no sense to me and for which I could find no fathomable explanation. I remember one time when I was about twelve or thirteen being curious as to who lived in the houses on the other side of the canal across the farmland from my great grandmother’s house. To me these houses were positively begging to be explored. There were three of them, two close together and one further away. All three were surrounded by large weeping willows, elm trees and cyprus trees. The yards were positively over run with tall grasses that always seemed to be being watered. They looked like displaced houses from the bayou and with the stagnant water surrounding them both I could easily convince myself that crossing that canal took me into the swamps along the Mississippi.

Eventually I learned that the two large and close together homes were inhabited by two families but the smaller and far more decrepit house was abandoned and had remained so after the former owner to a gun to his head in shame for killing his only daughter. No Trespassing signs be damned, after hearing this my skin positively crawled and my fingers twitched to explore the house where a murder and suicide took place. The story had it that the house had been boarded up by the man’s son but that he couldn’t bear to sell it. When a friend, who shall refrain from naming since he has never been found of me mentioning irl names of others in my blog, came over to visit that day we immediately set out to explore it.

My hands still sting remembering the number of splinters that were lodged into my hands from prying the rotting boards off of what was once the kitchen window. The house, though intriguing looking and positively begging to be explored on the outside was utterly droll on the inside. Although it appeared larger than my own grandmother’s house it was relatively tiny on the inside. There was an odd sense of stepping back in time when we first climbed through that window I must confess. From the moment my foot touched the counter beneath the window I felt as though I had walked into some old lady’s kitchen after she had finished breakfast and that she would walk back in at any moment to do the dishes. A plate and a dirty coffee cup sat innocently on the table looking like the remains of someone’s breakfast. The only thing to dispel this illusion was the thick coating of dust that covered every surface of that room.

We combed that room until it grew too hard to breath from all the dust we were kicking up before moving on to the next room and the next. In every room we pulled out every drawer, opened every cabinet, and sorted through all of the various nick knacks and oddments that we found on table tops and shelves. While we were impressed with some of the antiques we stumbled up nothing really caught eyes. Remember, we were preteens at the time and I sincerely doubt we realized, even vaguely, that half the stuff we were passing by were all valuable in their own right. There was one thing that did catch my eye though. It sat on the dresser of what was probably the daughter’s room. It was an odd looking little porcelain doll meant to look like a clown or a sort of court jester and dressed in a black outfit with a little black hat. Despite the cute face his appearance, to this day, makes me think of the movie Puppetmaster, but I digress. I’m not sure why I did it but I tucked the little guy in my pocket as my little trophy for this jaunt and called the adventure off.

We were interested in proof of the man’s lunacy and were hoping for a scare, blood stains, and the proverbial smoking gun. Instead we were just in need of a bath. I remember we were grumbling about our disappointment as we entered the kitchen to make our exit when something out of the corner of my eye made me jump. I was embarrassed to have been startled so easily for what was probably just a rodent when my friend let out a choked scream behind me. Totally spooked and pissed off I whirled around ready to clock him one for trying to scare me further only to see him not even looking at me, but at the ceiling. With dread I looked up and what I saw I’ll never forget.

Every single knife that we had noticed in the kitchen drawers were now embedded in the ceiling and their handles were quivering as if they’d been thrown with incredible force. I just stood there for a moment with my mouth agape before I made a mad dash for the window.

I’m not going to pretend to be brave or courageous. I saw those knives in that ceiling where they weren’t before with no possible explanation of how they got there and I was scared. As I ran I heard more choked off gasps behind me and what could only have been the sound of the knives falling from the ceiling. I never turned back around, I never stopped to make sure my friend was okay and right behind me. I was scared and all I cared about was getting out alive. I jumped through the kitchen window and landed in the mud with a splat. Another thud landed beside me and that was all the assurance I need that we had made it out alive and together. We took off across the yard at full tilt screaming our heads off and despite my fear of deep waters we opted to swim across the canal rather than travel further down the canal road to the bridge. As we climbed out of the canal on the other side, sopping wet and shaking in fright my mother and grandmother caught sight of us.

To tell you how scared we were we didn’t even stop to realize we were supposed to go no further than where the membrillo (quints) trees stood, and here we were on the other side of the cotton field! We didn’t care about any of that and just ran straight to what we considered safe ground. Later that day my mother took us back to the house to show us that not only were we being silly but that it was our own guilty conscious that was playing tricks on us. We didn’t even crack a smile at the sight of my mother climbing through a window instead we just followed behind like cowed ducklings.

She took us on a full sweep of the house to prove there was nothing amiss and the entire time we waited on pins and needles for a spooky repeat. Nothing happened. In the end we climbed back out and received our punishment for trespassing and put the adventure behind us. The only thing that we both found odd that we decided not to mention since to admit it would be to admit that something was going on was the fact that all of the kitchen knives that had been in the drawers previously were gone and there were several thin lacerations in the ceiling.

I’ve tried over the years to debunk the event and the only thing that has ever come to my mind is that someone or someones crept into the house while were occupied and played a trick on us. Of course that begs the question of how they did it and I’ve yet to figure that one out. To this day I still have the little porcelain clown who now sits on the shelf by my bedside. I’ve been told that it wasn’t a very smart thing to keep it but I’m kind of interested to see if he’ll ever pull a Chucky on me. Hasn’t happened yet. (edit: and as soon as I find my camera again I’m taking a picture of the lil guy and posting it here.)

Now I’m sure there are a lot of people reading this shaking their heads and going ‘uh-huh’ as it’s in our nature to be skeptics of the unknown and that’s the premise behind the 1408 Movie that is due out in theaters June 22. The movie stars John Cusack and Samuel L. Jackson in the movies based upon the short horror story of the same name by Stephen King.

Supernatural writer and myth debunker Mike Enslin, played by John Cusak, is the author of two hit books focusing on “supernatural phenomena”. In an attempt to gather fresh material and research for his latest book Enslin checks into the infamous room 1408 in a New York City hotel Fully believing the stories and rumors to be all myths Enslin plans to stay there and prove the stories false. Hotel manage Mr. Olin (Samuel L. Jackson) however warns him that the dangers are quite real and attempts to dissuade him to no avail.

Intrigued? Then you must watch the movie’s trailor:

As someone who has gone looking for scares and thrills with the intent to debunk and the simultaneous urge to be proven wrong this movies just screams “watch me!” Add to that the fact that this movie features two of the best actors and you’re guaranteed thrills and chills. Is anybody else planning on seeing this?