The room didn't look haunted. Nothing about it appeared in the remotest sense scary, except perhaps for the old deer head mounted on the wall next to the fireplace, staring down on those who entered. Dad had bagged that deer years earlier and was very proud of his trophy. The really unnerving part about the room was what would happen there. I grew up knowing that there was something different about that room. There always seemed to be some sort of presence there. The presence would sometimes be very strong, as if something was going to appear to one of us if we stayed too long. I always had a sense that it was sad and gloomy, especially on Christmas night, after the presents had been opened, dinner had been served, and the darkness of winter set in.

It sounds trite, but the presence was so thick that you could cut it with a knife. One Christmas, my sister Sue, who was around twelve at the time, went to play in the room while all were busy elsewhere in the house. She heard a peculiar noise, as if someone were either laughing or crying, and it seemed to be getting louder. She thought it must be coming from the house next door, so she went to the window and opened it. At that point she realized that the sound, which was growing louder, was coming from the room itself. She ran in fear. In my teenage years, my friends and I began to toy with the paranormal and actually tried to make friends with the "ghost." We held a séance, and nothing happened at that time, but soon afterward we felt we had made contact through a very peculiar means.

My parents had bought an old RCA record player, which was mounted on the wall in one corner of the room. When we played records in that room, we noticed that the ghost liked certain songs and didn't like others. With some songs, the presence would become very strong, almost to the point of appearing. On the other hand, when we played songs the ghost didn't like, the room filled with agitation. For instance, the ghost liked "Tuesday Afternoon" by the Moody Blues. It hated "Wild Thing" by The Troggs. There was an electrical short in the record player, so that occasionally it would give out a loud, screeching noise through the speakers. It seemed to happen randomly, but then we realized, in our innocent--or should I say ignorant and childlike--way, that the screeching wasn't always random.

Sometimes it was, but sometimes it was purposeful and creepy. If the ghost didn't like a song, it would make the record player screech. When it screeched, we'd yell, "Shut up!" It would stop right on cue. This happened time and again. It was sort of a game. The ghost seemed to play with us, and we played with it, through the stereo. This came to a head one day when my friend Mark and I were sitting next to the stereo listening to "Wild Thing." The 45 RPM record of "Tuesday Afternoon" sat right above it on the disc, ready to come down and play next.

To our amazement, the room suddenly filled with agitation. Something moved in the direction of the record player. Both of us watched from less than two feet away as the arm of the record player rose. "Tuesday Afternoon" was lifted up in the air and the needle raced and scratched across "Wild Thing." Then the "Wild Thing" record lifted off the player, flew across the room, hit the fireplace, and broke into pieces. "Tuesday Afternoon" gently came back down onto the record player, the needle set onto the record, and the song began to play. We screamed. We ran.