anyway, this isn't a review of paranormal activity. although i will say that after viewing the first i'm halfway intrigued in viewing the 2nd, even if just for the last ten minutes of the first flick. that last scene was creepy, whether or not the movie is worth a second viewing. but yeah, this is more my rambling recap of my own personal paranormal experience. (one of several). maybe this should be a reoccurring column since i've seemingly run out of 'men i want to date' as of late. (what's up with that, jodi? normally bitch is boiiii craaaazy). ghosts intrigue me. while i may not be a religious person, persay, i definitely believe in some form of afterlife or spirituality. not atheist, not quite agnostic, just kind of in between. i guess i believe in ghosts.
(take heed, my peers. if i suddenly croak in the near future, you KNOW ima haunt yer ass. droppin bars of soap in the shower, making creepy meowing sounds vs. the atypical ghostly boos and whatnot. can't wait, jus' like tori amos ima be a 'happy phantom.')
again. tangent. i blame this on the two glasses of yellowtail and recent bout of severe sleep deprivation and night terrors. (which are AWESOME, btw). *sarcasm*. but that's another post. . . . ok, ok.
Monster in the Attic.
this shit is real. out of all of my supernatural/freaky/whateverthefuckyouwannacall'em experiences, this was by far the fucking scariest and had multiple witnesses.
it was winter, 2005. a fucking cold ass winter, only to be rivaled by chicago's own in 2008. i was living in oshkosh, wisconsin - about halfway between milwaukee and green bay, wisconsin, in the mid to upper east side of the state. i was just finishing my last semester of school and preparing for the 'real world' as a college graduate. i was dirt ass poor. i lived with two other girls, one of which was graduating in the fall semester on the 4.5 year plan like myself and one who was done that may. it was a bit of a struggle to find an apartment willing to accommodate a 6 month versus 12 month lease for us december grads, but thanks to a highly personal incentive investigative journalism final piece the previous semester, i had finally found a rental company willing to work with us for an august-january lease.
the semester ended mid december, and shit it was cold. neither of my roommates had a job other than being a full time student, and my gigs as student paper managing editor and music director at wrst left little room for me to work other than the spare change i picked up working the front desk of one of the dorms. thus, we had no heat. we flat out refused. we were going to beat the man, goddammit. and that we did - kinda. we taped plastic on our windows. tacked multiple layers of heavy duty sleeping bags, blankets, whateve we could find. space heaters. electric blankets. multiple layers of socks, sweatpants, hoodies and t-shirts. this still didn't stop us from waking each morning to our heavy clouds of breath.
but again, i digress. let me back up. my two roommates lived in remote parts of the state which basically left it up to me for us to find a place to live our final fall semester. the apartment itself was a pile of shit. drafty as fuck (hence the cold). an oblong, twisty hallway shape. an upper level of a two story apartment with a recently renovated unit below us. our unit, on the other hand, hadn't even received a touch-up paint job or safety check in years. piece. of. shit. but it was cheap. for 200 bucks a piece, we had a 3 bedroom space big enough for us all a mere 2 blocks from campus and the bar scene. we had free water and electric was cheap. it had free parking, and most important of all, allowed us our temporary lease. when i first signed for the place, the landlord had mentioned a few off-hand comments i paid no attention, something along the lines of, 'well the upper unti hasn't been rented in quite a few years, but since you're only renting to december/january, there shouldn't be a problem,' as well as 'just don't go in the attic--you won't see it, the walls are boarding up the entry way, just stay clear.'
easy enough. no bigs.
so we lived in our college slum and coexisted peacefully, while freezing, from august until december. after annette and i graduated, she decided to peace out while rachael and i decided to stick around for a bit longer. our landlords were slumlords and didn't give two shits what we did as long as it meant more money in their pocket, so out went their 'as long as it's only to december/january' stipulation in lieu of 'month to month is fine by us.'
uw-oshkosh's semesters had an especially lengthy hiatus between fall and spring. while annette moved on, rachael still needed a place to reside while she continued her studies. i, on the other hand, had no particular desire to return to argyle for a month and a half, so decided to pursue a temporary job situation since graduation. i had tentative plans of relocating to chicago but knew i wasn't getting there with my mere $50/week i picked up from whoring my plasma out, so stuck around and got a brief horrendous stint at an old navy outlet (we're talking 3 shifts people) and a humiliating caffeine induced, flair sporting, waitressing position at the newly opened red robin. (that's a whoooooole other post there. eeek.com). rachael was close with her family, so had opted to go home for the last half of december and the month of january. my current beau at the time decided to head home too, so i was mostly on my own, working and hanging with random acquaintences for the interim--sleeping alone in the creepy, drafty, empty apartment problem free for nearly 2 months.
it wasn't until the night before spring semester started in the end of january that we heard the monster. sure, the apartment was drafty and old--we had upstairs squirrelly and birdie upstairs tennants. we'd occassionally hear the roll of acorns and scampering of tiny rodent feet. how cute, our friends are lively, we'd joke. whatever, right?
well, fast forward to the first night rachael and mike returned to join me in occupying the apartment. sleeping as typical (cold frosty breathy air included), mike and i awoke around 3 am to a quiet, whimpery kind of moaning sound. unsure where it was coming from, it was still subtle but disturbing enough to wake us both up (and we're both pretty heavy sleepers). i got out of bed, moved the pounds of bedding away from my bedroom window, and sought out anything unusual on the street below - it sounded as if a dog had gotten hit by a car and was painfully suffering its last lag. a very distinctive, ueeeeuuuuhhhhhh? uuuueeeeeehhhhh? low, but repetitive. after finding nothing, mike and i shook it off and passed back out.
we weren't asleep for long, however. fast forward to four am when we woke up to a THUNDEROUS and defeaning thumping of some creature running in circles above our heads at approximately 5,000 miles an hour. literally. this shit wasn't any squirrels. and it wasn't slowing down. it ran. and ran. and ran. very heavily. very noisily. and extremely rapidly. 'what the fuck' mike whispered. i just whimpered. and then it made the sound i will never forget. at first, a series of the low pitched ueeeeehhh???'s, but then followed by a ferocious and gutteral shrieking monstrous growl i can only describe by typing as RHHHHHEEEEEOOOOOOOORRRRHWWWWWOWWWH. (extremely high pitched in volume). never once, slowing its rapid race around my attic. this is when i heard poor rachael from the other side of the apartment shriek, 'joodiiiiieeeeee????!!!!!" 'i have to pee.' i whispered nervously to mike after nearly two hours of this horrendous debacle. it was 5:45 am. this shit started at 4. "just. wait. until daylight." he whispered.
oh shit. the boyfriend was even scared. dudes aren't supposed to get scurrred, and mike of all dudes was the last person i'd ever take as superstitious or supernatural. we didn't sleep any more that night. eventually the madness ceased and i called the landlord. 'ummm, there's something in our attic. not squirrels. something big. something loud. and something very very terrifying.' they assured me they would send someone right away. as rachael and i prepped for our morning routines (her class, me work), mike got the fuck outta there and ran home.
eventually two old white dudes with greying hair and sporting bib overalls and oversized utility belts strolled up our apartment. 'so ye gurls got squirrels, eh?' one croaked. 'um, i wouldn't be so sure they're squirrels,' was all i could retort. the oldies got to work unnailling the wall that led to a mysterious staircase to the upper level, disappeared for about five minutes and thumped around with flashlights and hammers, trying to 'scare the squirrels out.' they set up a trap, came down the stairs, reported no findings, and said they'd be back the next day to 'catch them squirrels.'
whatever. they totally thought we were dumb defenseless girls. but they didn't hear that shit.
luckily, they nailed up the temporary wall to the attic and then were on their way. rachael and i were frustrated, but relieved to know there wasn't a gigantic wildabeast terrorizing our attic.
the next night, nothing. the men return as promised and tear down the nailed wall once again. this time mike convinced me we should follow the old dudes and get a glimpse of this mysterious attic ourselves. terrified, i reluctantly agreed once curiousity got the better of me.
it was a fucking apartment. well, kind of. there wasn't a bathroom. or any running water, but what we walked into could hardly be considered an attic. there was a former bedroom with rotting caved in ceilings. a living room like area complete with a lazy boy recliner, a tv stand with an ancient tv set, looking as if it had been one of the fresh models when color tv was all the rage. random portraits hung from the walls. a love seat. a table. poor, rotting, unkepmt condition, but a separate apartment sans kitchen/bathroom nonetheless. now why would they nail this up and not renovate it for a couple extra bucks as an add-on to the apartment rachael and i currently resided in? made no sense. what also made no sense was when the oldies found not a trace of a living being and condescending laughing, took their empty cages back down telling us girls to 'not worry our pretty little heads about any more squirrels - them little critters wouldn't be back no more.'
and they weren't. for like, two months.
one night, mike and i had met a mutual friend for a couple pitchers of lizard lager down at peabody's. in a semi intoxicated haze, we reiterated the one night of terror we had experienced the februrary before. laughing it off, 'whoa, what a weird experience!' at this time, rachael and i had found a new roommate to occupy annette's empty room, a dude i had waited tables with at the lovely red robin SMILING BURGER world. mike and i had stumbled on our jolly way home, and without any instances, knocked out per usual. until around 2 am, we heard a familiar, uuueeeeehhhhhh??? uuuueeeehhh?? whimper. we woke up. 'no fucking way.' i shivered. it was fucking eerie. 'you've gotta be kidding me.' was all he could say back.
that's when the running started up again. i forgot to mention, when the oldies were stomping around after the last occurrence, their 200 lb per dude weight had sounded nothing like the weight of the beast running above us. that made it even scarier to hear the heaviness race at mach speed in circles. once again rachael screamed, 'jooodi!!!' and the new roommate, also a mike, muttered a 'what the fuck?' so that made four of us. all fucking petrified in our beds. the growl shriek returned and we were frozen stupid.
once again, the next morning, i called the landlord as early as possible. but this time, the monster didn't stop with the daylight. like paranormal actiivity, i busted out my handheld camcorder in hopes of capturing the 'uuuueeeeh's' and moaning. the screaming had subdued and the running slowed down, but that beast wasn't done crying. in fact, it was still fucking racing around--DOWN THE FUCKING STAIRWAY KIDDIE CORNER TO THE BATHROOM WHERE I WAS BRUSHING MY TEETH. it hurled its body down the stairway and flung its body against the barely nailed on makeshift wall. i belted out a scream any 70's cult horror flick female victim would kill for, unaware my body was capable of belting out such a bloodcurdling scream. rachael was freaked. i was freaked. new roommate was freaked. mike, had of course, peaced out.
even by the time our old dudes returned, chuckling at the scaredy girls of squirrels, we could hear the quiet 'uuuueeeeh's?' the old dudes weren't having it, though. conveniently enough, the sounds ceased as soon as we finished insisting the sounds were'nt squirrels and they once again disappeared up the stairs and this time the monster sounds stopped. the old dudes once again stomped around, pounded on some windows, and returned down the stairs without any condescending 'oh you girls' comments. they retacked the wall to the stairway back up and promised to return, telling us 'you better not go up there.'
we didn't. the next night was even worse. the running resumed. the shriek growling continued. the whimpering as well. but this time there was a series of loud thumping sounds in addition. THUMP. THUMP. THUMP. as if someone was standing on a table, dropping heavy bags of groceries onto the floor above our heads. what. the. fuck. mike was a good enough boyfriend to still keep me company at night, despite the madness ensuing above our heads - why we didn't spend the night at his house across the street is beyond me, but we still stayed in my bed. didn't sleep very much, though.
when the oldies returned the next day i took a peek upstairs. the lazyboy chair was flipped upside down. as were the pictures from the wall. the tv stand knocked over. well, there were our thumps. i raced outta there and the oldies took their equipment, pounded around some more, and then nailed that wall up super tight.
after that, you better damn well believe there were sleepovers at mike's house. rachael suddenly started going home on the weekends. this was early may. one other occurrence, that was never really quite explained, was when this dusty, gross looking old stuffed sheep toy suddenly appeared at the top of our stairwell. i assumed it must have belonged to rachael, being a crafty and kinda sentimental stuffed animal kinda girl, like maybe as a childhood toy or something. after two days of kind of ignoring it but wondering why she left it in the middle of our stairway, i asked her jokingly, 'dude aren't you lonely without your stuffed lambie?' her face grew pale. 'i thought that was yours.' 'what?' 'yeah.' 'no.' we reluctantly went back to the toy, which appeared to have been from another generation entirely, absolutely positivie it didnt come from the oldies during their last stay and knowing it wasn't ours. we were too scared to touch it. we kicked that mother fucker down the back stairway where it remained until we eventually peaced out.
no more sounds from the monster - but again, i basically moved in with my boyfriend at the time at that point and rachael got the fuck out too. we had given up any hope of getting our security deposit back after our new roommate had taken the liberty of adopting a baby pitbull which he then locked in his bedroom during work, and pissed and ate up the carpeting. awesome. well, we were surprised to get the full amount back, no questions asked.
we moved our separate ways and that was that. the 'dont go int he attic' 'you're only living until january (prior to the monster occurrences)' and 6 month leniant lease were suddenly making more sense, especially with the oldies grave faces the final time they visited. the reason we got our security deposit back is because the landlords never even bothered to check the fucking place out.
mike and i had returned to oshkosh after our move to chicago in september 06 for a friend's wedding. after a couple too many beers, we thought it'd be a good idea to see if we could break into the old place since it didn't look like anyone lived there.
the front doors were unlocked. noone lived there. in fact, our keys were still sitting on the kitchen counter where we were told to leave them when we moved out 4 months prior. i found an old cd i had forgotten in my bedroom closet. the place was creepy and eerie as fuck.
to this day i have no idea what the fuck went on at 611A wisconsin, and you know what, i don't think i really care to know. whatever it was, it certainly wasn't human - but also left no evidence or trail other than the flipped furniture and nightmares etched in my roommates and my memories.
to put it quite frankly, it was pretty fucking awesome. but i'd sure as hell never live there again.
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