The Haunting of Marine Corps Base, Quantico

I am sad a little today, for two reasons. One being, it is the last day of the Coffin Hop. There have been some excellent blog posts this past week. And two, there is someone special I miss very much. Every Halloween I think of him and wonder what happened to my friend. This is the story of how I met that friend. What I am about to share is one hundred percent true. No facts have been altered, embellished, or falsified for any reason. This is how my husband and I remember our two years living with a paranormal entity.

My husband joined the Marine Corps before we married. Most of our engagement time was spent with him in boot camp and tech school on the other side of the country. When he graduated Tech school, he flew from Maryland to California for three days of leave. In that time, we got married and had a wonderful honeymoon camping for two days, then he left for Virginia.

I had to stay behind due to lack of housing. One month later, my husband sent me a plane ticket and I was on my way to the married life. When I arrived in our two story town home I didn’t mind that all we had was an inflatable couch, inflatable bed, two bicycles, a black and white 13”television and a stereo. I was just happy to be with my husband, until he told me that the next morning he would be gone for three days because he had guard duty.

So there I was, alone again in a new empty place. Not wanting to be in the creepy upstairs rooms, I decided I would not go upstairs while my husband was gone, which really sucked because that’s where our only bathroom was. When I needed to go, I would bolt up the stairs, do my duty, and bolt back down.

Our wedding day!

The first evening wasn’t so bad. I had no issues and slept like a baby. Night two however, was a much different story. I fell asleep on our air couch fully clothed, after a long hard day beating the pavement for work and getting to know my new place of residence. When I awoke, I was in my pajamas with a blanket and pillow. I assumed my husband must have come home at some time while I slept. I called him to say thank you, but the man had no idea what I was talking about.

I chalked it up to me just not remembering waking up, going upstairs, changing and going back downstairs to sleep. Shortly after getting off the phone though is when I became aware I was not alone.  Suddenly, I heard a door upstairs open, and footsteps across the hardwood floors walk into the bathroom. When I heard our toilet flush, I grabbed the buck knife I slept with under my pillow.  I prepared to shank an intruder as he made his way down my stairs.

 There was just one problem. All that came down the stairs was a blur that I only picked up when it walked in past my television, into the kitchen and opened my refrigerator, closed it, then returned upstairs. I freaked out! Running out of the house, I went to a neighbor’s house and called my husband. You could imagine the things he had to say to me for calling him with hocus pocus bs while he was at work, but being the great husband he is, he was able to come home to check it out.

This is the house where we lived.

He found nothing. No sign of life anywhere. Seeing how freaked out I was, he called work and asked to take a day of leave. We sat silent in the house for hours waiting for the entity to reappear. Nothing. Bored, my husband turned on the television. I forgot I had the television up all the way so I could hear the news while I sat outside to smoke.

Coming from the spare bedroom was a series of thumps as if someone was stomping on the floor.  His first thought was one of his buddies was hazing us into the neighborhood. Quickly, my husband ran up the stairs and into our second bedroom to find who was playing tricks on him and his wife, only to find nothing.

Certain it was only a colleague, my husband waited downstairs for another clue to where the jokester Marine or Marines may have been hiding. Silence was all we heard. Again comfortable that all was well, we snuggled into our couch and watched The Simpsons then went to bed upstairs.

My Marine flexin'!

As we laid on our air mattress, talking about our future plans, we were interrupted by the sound of the spare bedroom door opening. Sure he’d catch the culprit, he’d jumped out of bed and opened our bedroom door.

With his jaw on the floor, he watched as an invisible force lifted the toilet seat, flushed, walk down stairs, opened and closed the fridge, then return to the empty bedroom. You can imagine I was completely freaked out!  I was ready to pull up stakes and take off. Being the mean green fighting machine Marine my husband is, he wasn’t about to change houses because something else wanted to live there too. We would have to figure out how to live together.

In an attempt to make it slightly less frightening for me to be home alone, my husband named the ghost George and at times, encouraged me to talk to him. So whenever I needed to sweep the spare bedroom, I always knocked on the door before opening it and announced my presence. ‘Hey George, I’m just coming in to sweep up. How’s your day going?” Yes, I said it every time! I got used to falling asleep fully clothed when my husband was away and waking up in my p.j.’s with a pillow and blanket.  There were times when he’d make trip after trip to the fridge and I would yell at him. “George, you’re freaking me out. Go to your room!’ and he would remain there for the night. Sometimes I had to remind him to lower the toilet seat when he was done relieving whatever it is a ghost relieves when using the restroom.

 

There were times we didn’t get along so well. If the television or radio was too loud for his liking, he would start stomping like crazy. I would turn it down or yell at him to stop stomping. If he was in an especially bad mood, he would quit stomping, but repeatedly open and slam closed the extra bedroom door. It would freak people out during parties but the looks on their faces was worth it.

We lived with George for two years. Though we had some differences, he became part of our family. During the lonely times while my husband was away, he would be all I had to talk to. He never gave me a reason to fear him, even when we argued and he always made sure I had my favorite blanket. I never allowed anyone in his room without knocking first, and tried to treat him with the respect I would a person with a pulse.

When we moved, due to our housing areas being condemn, my husband and I both went into the empty room before loading the last box, and asked him to come with us. It sounds silly, but I was worried what would happen to him when the bull dozers moved in. 

For the first month in our new place I would call for George. It broke my heart every time there was no reply. I went back to our partially standing town house and begged for the guy to come stay with us. Again when I called for him, I received no response. I don’t know if he still lives in the 2900 block of Marine Corps Base Quantico, or if the demolition helped him move on, but every time I move to a new place ,I call for him in hopes maybe he did follow us after all.  I still haven’t heard from him, but if and when I do, I know I’ll be happy sharing my world with his.