Ghost Stories from A Window. (Horror)

Spooky chilling tales from the mountains of Chiang Mai, Thailand.

(Whether this story is real or not is up to you to decide)

There's this one window that I've hated since I was a kid.

Whenever I'd wake up in the middle of the night and find myself looking out my bedroom window, it's almost like I expect a ghost of a long black haired woman with a pale white face and monstrous red eyes to be looking back at me.

Before my sister and I moved to the United States, we used to live with our Grandmother and Aunt in a town called Chiang Mai, Thailand. 

A lovely mountain town with elephants, large lush green forests, and geniunely warmhearted people that smile brightly with every greeting.

I left Thailand when I was six years old, and though my childhood might've been left there, the culture stubbornly stuck with me as I was growing up. That includes the language, the taste for spicy food, as well as the superstitions relating to supernatural things such as spirits and views on the afterlife.

For some reason, I'm more afraid of ghosts when I'm in Thailand than when I'm in America. And a part of that reason being that in America, ghost stories will barely if ever make the national news; whereas in Thailand, it's not uncommon to hear about a haunted temple or a spooky abandoned house on a national daytime broadcast right before the news anchor switches over to a weather forecast.

"Please stay away from Prasart Temple, there's been rumors about robbers getting scared shitless by a spirit of a young lady who wears traditional Thai clothing that dates back from the 1700's.

Also in weather, there's a 50% chance of rain today.

So if you do go to that temple, please bring a lucky Buddha necklace along with an umbrella. Because if you do see a ghost, then you might as well stay dry and not catch a cold on top of being scared half to death."

In correlation to ninety-five percent of Thai people being devote Buddhist, we are also highly superstitious and that's on a general basis even if religion isn't involved. Everything from clothes to furniture arrangements, there's a spiritual meaning behind various daily actions.

For one, in Thai superstition, you shouldn't sleep on a bed with your head pointing towards the direction of south or west mainly because those two directions symbolize death. The east is where the sun rises (light) and the west is where the sun sets (darkness). And north symbolizes growth, or moving up in life, whereas south is the opposite of growth, which in this case is dying.

Secondly, wearing certain accessories in holy places is said to bring bad JuJu (luck).

For example, wearing hats inside a Buddhist temple is said to make you see spirits later on in the nighttime. This superstition has to do with how Temples are a place for the mind, the spirit, the invisible, and that is represented with your head, the most sacred part of your body. A hat represents the material world, therefore, going into a spiritual place with a material possession on your head might mix your perception of the spiritual and material world. 

Thus, being able to see ghosts, because you mixed your physical world with the spiritual world, by wearing a material possession(hat) inside of a spiritual place (temple). O, and there's two spots on the side of your head called a, "temple," as well, if I my knowledge of anatomy is correct. Coincidence? Who knows.

After 10 years abroad, my sister and I went back to Thailand for summer vacation. This homecoming trip after being in the United States for so long, just felt like an entirely different country-even though I was born and raised here. 

My English was levels beyond better than my Thai, I couldn't read the street signs on the road anymore, I was taller than everyone by like five inches because drinking milk was far more popular in America than it is here, and people think I talk a bit funny because my Thai has gotten a bit rusty over the years.

Which is bad, since I wanted to know how to call someone a dickhead in Thai, but honestly couldn't find the right words to do so. Either way, this place was still home. And the first place to go to was back to where my Aunt and Grandmother stayed, in Chiang Mai.

I'm telling you, in Thailand, whenever nighttime kicks in, every Asian horror movie started to play in my mind.

In Bangkok, I walk down an empty street where there's just one street light, and the first thing I expect is a headless figure to be standing there under the light.

On the long bus ride traveling from Bangkok to Chiang Mai, whenever I looked out the windows of the bus, I expected to see spirits in the trees. Hospital buildings start looking like a place where there's an abandoned floor full of ghosts of dead patients, who are searching for their bodies for the next eternity.

Sheesh! I got to stop watching all these horror movies. Maybe this is why the cost of living is so cheap here, the cheap but delicious food, the cheap yet fashionable clothing, cheap expenses for vacationing in hotels, all of those are cheap just because if you get scared by a ghost, then at least you did it while still getting a bang for your buck($$$).

Aunties' house was just like I remembered it. A big metal gate in the front. Her cute dogs that are just so chubby and fluffy who always bark whenever they see me. Here it was like a miniature zoo because Auntie Nok owns an assortment of animals. Parakeets, hamsters, chickens, gold fish, turtles, dogs, and the occasional snake which aren't really hers, but considering that her area of land was so big, they had a place to live somewhere in the garden.

This might sound a bit strange but my Aunt and her ex-husband live in two houses that are right next to each other. And I don't mean "right next to each other," like there's a fence separating their houses, but I mean literally, if you walk through the big metal gate at my Aunt's house, to left is her house, and to the right is her ex-husbands house.

A divorced couple, that lives literally 25 ft away from each other's front doorstep. Where in between is a driveway and a garden. If this doesn't sound like it'll make a really funny soap opera, then I don't know what will.

After an emotional reunion with my Aunt and Grandma, I took my carry-on luggage and suitcase to the guest bedroom that I used to sleep in as a kid. From the looks of it, nothing has changed in the ten years I've been away from this room. That wobbly ceiling fan, where I feel like any moment is going to collapse on me. The bed where my head is pointed to the direction of north whenever I slept or laid on it.

O, and that f*****g window, that I hated. Yep, still creepy as ever. Seriously, did I mention that I hated that window? Because I really and sincerely wished that that window wasn't a thing. But hey, since Thailand isn't so big on air conditioning, that window will have to stay open throughout the night just so it doesn't get hot and sweaty in this room. It is summertime after all. Plus, what's the possibility of me randomly waking up in the middle of the night just to see a ghost, right?

...

For the next two weeks, my sister and I, tagging along with Grandma, and Auntie went through just about every note worthy place in Chiang Mai. The Chiang Mai Zoo and aquarium, a few mountain temples, the street markets that charge a higher price for things whenever I spoke English to the shopkeeper. And definitely the local restaurants, and noodle shops where I stacked plates upon plates of food just for the price of five American dollars for a meal. 

Everyday was a new adventure, but the nighttime remained the same, having to sleep in that bedroom with that dreaded creepy window. There'd be nights where i'd stay out in the living room and watch Thai comedy shows until I felt sleepy, just so it guaranteed that I'd go to sleep in the bedroom and not ever wake up in the middle of the night.

Then one day, just a few days before my sister and I had to go back to the United States, a death in the family occurred. (Perfect timing Universe, thanks a lot)

I might sound like an a*****e, but this was the only time in where I was annoyed more than sad when someone died. To put it more clearly, the family member was someone that I barely knew, just a relative who I might've met once or twice when I was a kid. And it was my grandmother's sister's son. So I guess, my uncle? Or my mom's cousin?

The moment I heard of this news, that's when my spider senses started tingling. All of those stories of what happens when someone passes away started kicking in. In Buddhist culture, after someone dies, their soul wanders for seven days before crossing over to the spiritual realm, Heaven or Hell, depending on that person's deeds in their lifetime. Within those seven days of that soul being in purgatory before moving on, the spirit likes to visit significant family members, sort of recalling the time that they spent with their loved ones.

In my case, I wasn't a significant family member to my Uncle, but my grandmother definitely was, since she's his Auntie. Yay! Guess who has two thumbs and sleeps under the same roof with his grandmother? This guy. Boy, I sure am lucky... (F**k)

My Grandma is sort of like the professional gardener in this house, and everyday i'd help her outside with the yard work. Cut a few bushes, pluck a few roots out the garden, go play with the dogs for a bit, and repeat this process until lunch time. 

This sort of work kept my mind occupied, because a gut feeling was telling me that something really weird was going to happen. It wasn't even like conscious thought either, how can I put it? My body knew, but my mind wasn't really putting out into words that my head can say to me.

These next few days before leaving Thailand is a part of those seven days in where my uncle's soul is going around visiting family members. And considering how my Grandma is mad religious, she prays for him every morning and evening. To me, this just looks like someone saying, "Hey, come visit me sometime before you move on."

Alright, just three days left before I leave this place. This is what happened. If you have a dog at home, don't get pissed at me for what I'm about to tell you.

So one night, I did my usual routine of watching late night Thai comedy shows to get sleepy before going to bed. Since I was the last one to be awake, it was my responsibility of turning all of the lights off in the house. Walked to the kitchen, click, lights are off. Back to the living room, click, turn off the tv, the ceiling fan, and the lamp. Boom. Easy. Walked to the bathroom. Took an excellent pee, flushed, turned off the lights in there.

It was when this light turned off that the stage was set, a completely dark house. No sounds, no lights, only a constant humming from the sound from of the fridge in the kitchen, perfectly normal stuff.

Oooooooooooooooowwwwwww!!!!

THE. F*****G. DOGS. HOWLING.

Son of a- plit-plat-plit-plat, my feet hit the wooden floors in a really fast walking motion straight to my bedroom. Got in there, slammed the door, and jumped right into the bed. Now I normally never pray before going to sleep, but you know what? First time for everything.

Buddhists usually follow up their prayers with a brief meditation session, but right now, this was not the time to be focusing on my breath, and finding inner peace. I mean it was, but when dogs are howling right outside your window, it's not exactly the most tranquil setting to be doing that.

My blanket was over my head, and that goddamn window, this had to be one of the paradoxical trains of thought to ever hit my brain. 

"Maybe I should look outside, just to make sure that nothing is out there-but wait, what if there is something out there?"

It's okay, the dogs are just unleashing their inner wolves because it's probably a full moon tonight... Wait... Don't ghosts usually come out during full moons? Shut up brain! Maybe the dogs stepped on a really spiky branch that Grandma and I forgot to throw away from the garden. There you go, purely accidental, that dog is grown, it'll get over it... Wait, what if the dog is really hurt and bleeding out? O s**t, what if they die and they become ghosts too?

No! That's silly, all dogs go to heaven anyway.

After a few minutes the dogs stopped howling, and I was finally starting to get back some peace of mind. Thinking thoughts of how I'm going to see my friends again back in America, what Junior year in high school was going to be like. Wondering if i'll have class with the girl that I liked in Sophomore year.

Somewhere in between all of this I fell asleep.

And when I woke up again, I started feeling a bit annoyed. For one, I made sure that I was tired before going to sleep just so I don't wake up in the middle of the night. And two, the room wasn't pitch black anymore, since my eyes had adjusted to darkness, and I could see everything that was in here.

The only source of light came from the window, and the room was a tinge of light blue since the moon was out and perfectly shining it's reflective rays in here.

Screw it, just fall back asleep and wait for the sun.

In the living room, my Aunt owns an old grandfather clock.

It was the kind of clock that dings every hour, just to tell you what time it is according to the amount of dings it makes.

Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding.

Four o' clock in the morning. Great! The darkest time of the night, and I'm wide awake. What could possibly go wrong?

The sounds of the clock in the hallway have never seemed so obnoxious, tick-tock-tick-tock-tick. Every second was just making fun of me at this point, "Haha! You can't go to sleep." 

And once again, I had to find my zen mode. Occupying thoughts that can drown out the noise. I recapped just about everything that's happened to me in Thailand. Sort of rewinding everything from the moment I landed and pressing play, skipping all of the parts that had to do with spooky material.

Airport. Saw a really cute girl.

Streets of Bangkok, saw a really cute girl, who I thought was a woman, but turned out to be a guy dressed like a girl.

Temple in Bangkok, saw multiple cute girls.

The old royal palace, admired the architecture while also admiring cute girls.

Train station, high school girls.

It's become apparent that I'm a total virgin who will do nothing with all the cute girls that I've seen. 

It was when I started recalling my last few days here, that something totally new occurred. In the middle of remembering how the food I ate tastes and smelled, I smelled something out of the normal. This smell, this smelly smell that was smelly definitely didn't come from the room.

Pause.

Because at first I thought it was just my imagination from remembering food. But it wasn't. It was real. It was in the air, and at first I thought it was just a breeze, because the window was opened. 

My eyes scanned the room, maybe a stink bug was in here. And honestly I hoped that it was a stink bug. But my gut knew better than that. (God, I wish I could just turn off my brain at this point) It wasn't just a breeze passing by. The only source where air blew in here was.

...

D****t. Not the window. Please don't be from the window. I knew the answer, it had to be from the window. And it was in this moment that curiosity was a double edged sword.

Slowly, just slowly, I started to breathe in very deeply to calm myself. The smell has been lingering here for the past minute or so now, and the best way to describe it was the smell of rotting trash. Something like walking past a dumpster. After getting myself prepared for the worst, I looked at the window.

!.. *Sigh* Sweet Jesus and Buddha... Wow, talk about a mood killer. For a second it looked like a person, but honestly, it's just a shadow of a tree. My Aunt has round shaped trees in the front yard, so it's no wonder why the shadow looked like it had a head.

Anyhow, I woke up that morning completely normal, no pale skin, no traumatic experiences or anything. Completely fine. The dogs were good, they didn't look like they've seen a ghost last night. And since these were my last days here, my sister and started packing our belongings since we'll be leaving in two days.

The next day, Auntie and Grandma were driving us to the train station that'll take us from Chiang Mai back to Bangkok. On our way there, we had stopped at a red light, and since it was a Sunday, there were kids on the side of the road selling flowers so people can take them to the temples as an offering.

So one little boy, he must have been like six or seven, comes up to our car. He says, "Excuse me, would you like some flower ornaments?" And hands the flower into the car. "No thank you, I've already bought some," my grandmother says back to him.

F*****G S**T.

...

Did... What!? Okay, this part is going to sound ridiculous. You're going to say I'm crazy or this story's fake. But honestly I kind of know how the main characters of ghost movies feel when they tell someone that they've seen ghosts and nobody believes them.

This story is called Ghost Stories From a Window for a very good reason. And I'll tell you right here and now, exactly why that is.

...

(Taking a real deep breather for this one.)

When the boy reached his hand inside the car... The windows weren't rolled down.

Author's Note

Hey there! Thanks for reading.

If you like this kind of writing style, I have a book out called,

"I'm Surprised I Haven't Been Arrested Yet."

You can find it at www.letswriteright.com