
Originally Posted by
recklessvw
This has never been discussed outside my immediate family, mostly because we understand the strong likelihood of skepticism and overall disregard, and we figured we'd just keep it to ourselves. I've been entertained for many years in this hallowed thread, so I guess I'll throw this one out there. This still scares the sh1t out of me, and every single syllable is as I remember it.
Preface: This is no childhood story...this happened last year in my current house. My house isn't built on anything crazy, it's essentially brand new, and nobody has ever died or gone insane here as far as I know.
Last year the house down the street from us had a garage sale in the middle of the week, over the span of a few days. Being neighborly, I stopped and chatted with them and checked out what was for sale, and was told they were unexpectedly leaving the country in a few weeks, and were selling off a few household items they didn't need or didn't want to move. Except what was for sale didn't at all jive with that story. It looked like they were selling an entire house, albeit a much smaller one, full of goods. One couch, one chair, one bookcase full of books, one bible, one table, one lamp, and shoes....lots of shoes. Nothing super suspicious at face value, just kind of....I don't know...weird. Nothing overly heavy or cumbersome, no exercise machines or old bicycles or kids stuff like you normally see at "I'm getting out of here soon" garage sales.
So I'm a sucker for a good deal, and the wifey and I had been shopping for a couch for our recently finished basement living area. We're comfortable, but certainly not wealthy, and we use Craigslist and garage sales all the time when we can score good deals. Anyway, this weird couple had this nice microfiber couch out on the front yard. Nice material, looked clean, pretty comfy, etc...they were asking $300 for it, and although I thought that was a bit high, I sat in it for a while and thought about it while I chatted with these people. After a few minutes of chilling in this couch, I decided against it for whatever reason and walked home.
A few hours later, my wife comes home hooting and hollering about this great deal she got on a couch, and leads me to the garage where the fabled microfiber couch was now taking up space. She told me she liked it, paid $250 for it, and said the guy was nice enough to deliver it up the street in his truck. I would learn why soon enough.
So we shoehorn this monster couch into the basement, set it up where we like it and I spend the next couple days sleeping on it during the hot summer days. (I work at night occasionally). It's about this time that I start to believe something is very wrong inthe basement of our house. During the next few days, I start to have some positively BIZZARE dreams, I wake up with my heart pounding, out of breath, and the crazy images in my head don't fade like dreams usually do. Images of lynchings, murder, buried alive, all sorts of craziness. I blame my crazy sleep patterns and admittedly crappy night-shift nutrition, and carry on....until my wife starts to complain as well.
She tells me about flickering lights, TV volume anomalies, and a sense of general unease anytime she is in the basement or near the stairs whenever I'm not home. She won't go down there, she wants to sell the house, she's just freaking out, and she is usually SUPER skeptical and rational about all things paranormal.
My mom soon comes to visit, and she elects to sleep on said couch since it's nice and cool in the basement. 4 hours later, she's back upstairs sleeping on the floor, and asking me to go downstairs and get her things for her since she refuses to descend the stairs. She expains trying to tie her shoes when she sees a vision of herself being strangled with her shoelaces on the couch, and wants to go home immediately.
Now I'm a reasonable guy with a reasonable belief structure, so I elect to go downstairs and get her stuff. As soon as I reach the landing where I can see this couch, I know something in the room is very, very wrong. The air was cold, thick, and hard to breathe like you were trying to inhale dirt, and very single hair on my body was standing on end. Goosebumps upon goosebumps, and my chest ached like I was being sat on. It was physically difficult to stay in that space, and although it's hard to describe, my body and brain knew whatever was currently occupying the space was purely, diabolically evil and it didn't want me down there. I swear it was darker down there than it had any right to be, despite the huge egress windows and ample light fixtures. It felt....I don't know...angry. LIke a deep, very personal kind of anger.
Over the couple weeks that followed, the dreams and visions and oppressive presence in the house got much worse. I can't quantify it or try to make some logical comparison, it just felt horribly horribly WRONG to be anywhere in the house. If somewhere in our subsonscious, there's a little-known defense mechanism that detects these sorts of things, mine was going nuts. It physically hurt going down those stairs.
So fast forward a few weeks, and I've had it. I call my father over to help me, and we moved that cursed thing from the basement into the back of my truck, and we headed for the local landfill with it. THe landfill is in town on the southwest side, and we headed into town from US287 outside of Fort Collins. At the intersection of 287 and 54G, the highway takes a slow turn to the east, and cross traffic has a stop sign with plenty of visibility. So we're eastbound at about 75mph in a 65 zone, and I see a red Dodge Dakota stopped at the intersection. We're approaching, and the driver is looking right at me...and then she just goes, pulling out right in front of me.
Now I remember very clearly thinking we were going to hit her, that there was no way I was going to be able to stop. I stand on the brakes, the ABS is going nuts, the rear is sliding all over the place, and somehow....somehow we miss colliding by maybe a few feet. I stop at the side of the road, gather my wits, give the truck and the couch a once over, then finally make it to the landfill where we paid $30 to dump that very nice, very haunted couch, still shaked from the near MVA.
On our way home, silence. Not a thing was said...we pull onto my street, and parked in front of the garage sale house is a red Dodge Dakota. I didn't stop, I never asked, and to this day I never saw that truck there again.
The second I walked into my house I knew it had been the couch. It felt lighter somehow...lighter everywhere. I could breathe, hang out in basement, and we could sleep again. No weird dreams, no visions, no craziness....all of it gone.
That garage sale house got foreclosed on a year ago, and is still for sale. The yard is all dead, and the price keeps going down. I wonder sometimes what in the hell happened in there and where those people ended up, and then of course I wonder what it had to do with me and that red pickup....I'd like an explanation...by brain seems to want to assign some logic or reason to the whole thing, but something inside of me tells me I really don't want to know.
This is first time I've ever spoken or typed about that whole scenario outside my immediate family...I have goosebumps just typing this.