I live in a pretty calm and serene town with my parents for almost 20 years. My mom and dad built our house by themselves and did all the renovating as well. I’m happy to say that I had never experienced anything indecent that would’ve ruined my day except for a few instances with some neighbor kids when I was younger. But let’s be real, we all had those moments as kids.
Other than that, the only mishaps in my life only occurred outside of my neighborhood, either in school where I flunked in physics, or in the nearby town where I broke my foot after falling from my bike, or at my ex-girlfriend’s home where I experienced my first break-up.
However, it wasn’t until I was around 21 when I moved to the basement of our house and started developing a rough sleep. It felt like there was a thunderstorm going in my brain once I closed my eyes. The noises were indistinct and had a bawling or roaring sound. Fortunately, they weren’t loud enough to keep me awake all night but it was still disturbing. My first guess was that it was the washing machine on the upper floor but once I checked it was turned off. Then I assumed I would just have to get used to my new bedroom. So I just ignored it.
However, it kept going on like this for a few weeks and I was still speculating about the origins of these noises. I looked up online but couldn’t find a helpful answer. Wikipedia and some medicine-related forums came to the conclusion that I probably had schizophrenia because affected people tend to hear voices in their head. I brushed off these speculations quickly, it was the internet after all. These forums always keeps providing us with these information to make us feel crazy.
But I was still worried about these noises. Also the fact that my sleep rhythm was affected by this didn’t help at all.
And when I thought it couldn’t be any worse, one night the noises became more clear and I started to hear indistinct voices. I couldn’t describe them properly since it was all a blurry mess, but one thing I could clearly tell was that the voices were screaming.
I’ve watched a lot of horror movies in my life and heard all sorts of screaming but this was a truly disturbing sort.
The next day, I decided to tell my mom about this. She was pretty unconcerned about this, maybe my description of the voices was a little imprecise. But she still suggested I should go see the doctor, if it really bothered me this much.
So I went to the doctor’s and I will spare you all the details. He wasn’t helpful at all and prescribed me a medication for headaches instead. I even involved my friends in this and even though they had no answer either, they suggested I shouldn’t ignore these noises but rather listen to them clearly and make out whose voices they could be.
I had second thoughts to that advice since these noises were getting really creepy but at this moment I would try everything.
When the next night came up I went to bed and shut my eyes. Seconds later, the voices came back like an approaching train. Once again, they were messy, unclear and screaming. I tried my best to concentrate on one of the voices and to separate it from the others. I focused so hard it was like I was trying to recollect a difficult math equation during a test.
And indeed it worked. I could hear that one voice clearer. Now it didn’t just felt like a scream but more like a sobbing noise from a little girls. It was haunting and heartbreaking.
I continued with the other voices and it worked just as well. They became all the more clear and were unique in their form. One sounded like the shrieking of a young woman, another one like the croaking of an old man. Altogether there were seven voices I could make out.
The following day, I approached my mom again in the kitchen and told her about the voices. This time I made sure to be more precise so I described every voice I’ve heard. When I was done she seemed to have finally understood the seriousness of the situation because she looked truly concerned.
She sat down in a chair and started to talk.
“I was hoping this wouldn’t happen to you.”
I sat down as well and asked what she was trying to say.
“Years ago, before we moved here, we were still working on building our home. Our entire property was one big construction site. One day, there was a burst water pipe and we had to dig further into the ground to get it fixed. At the same time, a van was nearing and overlooked the construction site. It all happened so fast. The van hit the ground and the seven passengers couldn’t be saved on time.”
My mom stopped and burst into tears. I let her calm down for a minute and then asked her to keep going with the story.
“We needed hours to recover the van since the ground was like one big sinkhole and the pipes underneath were blocking our sights. After all this our neighborhood decided to let go of what happened and we kept building our house and living as if nothing ever happened. But your father and I never fully recovered from this incident. It got so bad that we started to hear the voices of the victims. The screaming and sobbing sounds of the people shortly before their death. We didn’t know you would hear them, too, since you were so young and not present when it happened.”
I consoled my mom for a while. I was glad that I now got an answer for the noises I heard every night. I had to think of an incident I once read in an article. It was about a school bus that was hit by a train that killed several students. Ever since it happened, cars that stopped on the same spot as the school bus were magically pushed away from the track. It was assumed that it was the ghosts of the dead children that were trying to save the drivers from trains.
Mom’s story was kind of similar but I still didn’t understand the purpose of the noises I heard. Then an Idea popped in my head. Maybe these victims were looking for some sort of spiritual salvation. After all, their deaths were never truly acknowledged since our neighborhood kept quiet on the incident. Perhaps I could get rid of the voices if I paid my last respects.
So I asked my mom: “Do you know the victim’s names? I would like to see the cemetery they’re buried in.”
My mom looked up, visibly pitiful and serious. “Oh honey, they were never buried in a cemetery.”
“But how come? There has to have been a burial since you were able to recover the van.”
“Yes, the van. I never said the bodies.”