Darlene Pillar Convinced She’s a Ghost, Haunts Her Own House
And her husband Mike’s had just about enough
As requested, I arrive at the Pillar home at 8:30 PM. After dark.
“Come on in,” says Mike Pillar as he shows me inside, “and just, I don’t know, be ready for anything.”
Suddenly the lights flicker off. And then back on again.
This is when I meet Darlene. Or, the Ghost of Darlene Pillar. Standing at the light switch, she looks upset.
“What did you do with the furniture?” asks Darlene in a raspy, demonic voice.
“It’s Fung Shui. Chi energy has to flow. It wasn’t flowing.”
“Since when do you have time to learn about Fung Shui,” says Darlene as she puts her hands to the wall and skitters toward us.
I ask where the children are tonight.
“They’re at her mom’s place,” says Mike, “They’ve been there off and on for a couple of weeks now. Ever since the…the incident.”
Darlene climbs onto the coffee table.
“You don’t need to tell the reporter about that,” rasps Darlene as she runs into a nearby closet.
Mike nods for me to go after her. “She’ll wait there all night if you don’t just go.”
I cautiously walk to the closet and, surprise, Darlene screams when I arrive.
“Darlene, honey, this is absolutely insane. You’re not a ghost. You’re a real person. You’re my wife!”
Darlene creeps out of the closet and then proclaims, “Poof!”
Mike explains to me she now thinks we can’t see her. Darlene sits on the couch and turns on the tv.
Mike says, “Ooh! How’d it turn on all by itself? I’m spooked.”
He tells me you have to say stuff like that.
I ask Mike when this all began.
“It started in June of last year. We finally got the house on the market like we’d been talking about.”
“Like you’d been talking about,” whispers Darlene in a deep, demonic voice.
“Ok sure,” says Mike, “I was a little more motivated to move. My commute to work is over an hour right now, and I was hoping to get a little closer.”
Darlene stands on the couch with her arms at her side.
“She’s floating now,” says Mike, “like, you know, a ghost.”
I ask Mike what he meant by the incident.
“My mother-in-law convinced us to do a séance. And turns out this house is actually haunted. By like, no offense honey, a real ghost. And we summoned him and now he’s trapped here.”
Mike explains it’s an intensely evil spirit who, once summoned, terrorizes nearby children.
“So now it’s even harder to sell,” says Mike.
After a series of low grumbling noises, Darlene says, “This was supposed to be our forever home!”
“My commute is unreasonable. It’s unreasonable!” yells Mike.
Just then the lights flicker and even Darlene looks a bit scared.
“Oh shoot,” says Mike, “You should go. I think we have a visitor.”
And before he finished that line I had already run out the front door.
