The Bouncing Ball

Name:            Laura Martinez
Email:           Lauramo7@yahoo.com
Location:         Coachella Valley, California, USA
Type:            Ghost
Date:            Friday, September 22, 2000
Time:            03:37 AM

I live in a trailer with my parents, on my grandparents ranch in the middle of the desert. My grandparents moved in about 12 years ago. The property that we live on used to be a settlement town called Little Arabia, around the end of the 19th century, and was both flooded in the great colorado flood of 1909, and later burned (Unknown). Some of the towns peole died in the fire, and others moved away, why one family remaind on the property as owners. They built 4 houses with the same bunglow style, and many generations of that family had lived and died on that property. They finally abandoned it in the 1960 for reasons unknown. In the early 1990's my Uncle bought the property from one of they remaining hiers. On a walk around the property one day, my grandfather, and uncle discoverd a burial ground. There were tomb stones marking the place. He quickly called together my male cusins and distroyed those resting places. That is when things started to happen. Lights would turn off and on. Voices would whisper "good night" in my grandparents ears. People would look in on them from the window, and a ball would echo around the peremiter of the little green bongalow.

I never believed the storys, but used them as a very entertaining way to scare the boots off of family members and friends. I didn't beleive them... until it happend to me.

It was early November in the desert. The wing was howling, as it does almost every night, the train had just past, and I had just fallen asleep. Or so I thought. I woke up confused, my had had jerked my awake, and the pillow had disapered. My right arm was placed under my head, and my left hand was locked between my knees. I was laid in spoon postion. My head had hit my arm with such force my ear ached! Then I noticed my pillow was missing. There was a cold breaze next to me. It was so cold I thought I was uncovered. I had thought I was lying at the end of the bed next to the air vent. I confermed this to myself with the feeling of being about to fall which would explain why I would be next to the vent, and why I was cold. I felt I was at the very edge of the bed. I stretched my right arm forward and discoverd I was not at the tip of the bed uncoverd, but in the middle of it and covered! (I have a queen size bed placed in the corner of the bedroom.) I moved myself over to the edge to get my pillow, which I assumed had fallen off the side and thus it should have fallen there. As soon as I moved I heard it. The hallow radiating echo of a bounceing ball, and it's owners almost silent foot steps. I kept searching for the pillow feverishly. I was frightened, and symotaniously amused! I strained my ears to hear every bounce, and and depth, I knowist the distance and just about everything. There where 3 seconds in between every bounce. There were too many bounces for me to remember. I discovered my pillow lying on the otherside of the room, as if someone or something had yanked it from under my sleeping head. I was not suprised. He just wanted to make a show of being dead and scary, I told myself. The ball kept bounceing steadly along side my trailer, it even went trought the walls of the extra room we were adding on to the place! I heard it very carefuly, not to miss a bounce. I wanted to remember this forever. "Bounce, bounce, bounce". I recognized the sound of the ball, and the sound of the footsteps, and the sound it made when it hit the ground. It was one of those big red balls, I used to play freeze ball with in elementary school, a sound like that is never forgotten. The sound of those types of balls bring back happy childhood memories. That is how I recocnize what type of ball it was. When the ghost ball hit the ground it made the sound of hiting concrete, which is the foundation of my grandparents house. It is also the matterial the side walk in made out of, which surounds there home. But, it is a narrow path. The ground around our trailer is eath, and it has a deeper firm sound. Cement sounds hallow and empty if a ball bounces on it. The sound of the foot falls were almost like soft muffled bells like those of a childs, small and sturdy. That is the only way I could discribe them. The ball sound fallowed the side of the trailer very closely. It trailed past the trailer, up the long curved drive way, and then trailed back. When it turned back it went along the kitchen wall. It was about to turn and fallow the opposit wall (which was the side I was sleeping at) when, I had a minor heart attack, and ran my butt out of my bedroom and into my parents room! Where then, I jumped into their bed and prayed it would not return.

It hasn't been a year yet, and although, I am looking forward to another incounter with my spooky friend with the ball, I will not be there to greet him this time around. I will be moving out to persue higher education. By the way, when I got to my parents room, the sun was about to rise, and my father was up drinking coffee in the living room, getting ready for work. Did he hear the bounceing ball also? He claims he did not, but by the sound of his voice when he came to see what had happend, I say he heard more then me running down the hall with my pillow in hand.