The Slamming Door
Back in middle school, my best friend and I would talk and hang out every chance we that we could. We were in the middle school band together, and we had most of our classes in common. Around this time, we starting to talk about girls, so our conversations gradually shifted from remote control cars to the cutest girls in our school. We talked a lot after school on the phone and this was pretty much all we talked about after a while.
One day my friend (who I will call D to keep his name secret) and I were on the phone a little bit after we got home from school. His parents worked during the day, so he usually ruled the roost until they both came back home after 6PM.
D was in the bathroom, at the time (we were guys so this stuff doesn't really faze us) while we were talking on the phone. The conversation was pretty mundane and the subject again was probably girls. He started to tell me about something when he suddenly stopped.
"Hey, I think my dad is home early. I just heard the door close downstairs."
D lived in a two level house. Most of the house was on the ground level with a small staircase leading to the 1 bedroom upstairs. Back by the kitchen, there was a staircase that ran down to a large room downstairs before ending in the laundry room. In the middle of the staircase, was a door leading to the garage. This door was the usual heavy wooden doors which many homes have to keep out the heat or the cold.
"Let me give you a call back so I can talk to my father. I'll call back in a couple."
"OK" I said.
So I hung up the phone and flipped on the television. About ten minutes later, the phone rang. It was D.
"G (that'll be my abbreviation), I think my house is haunted!"
"What?! Why do you say that?"
"Well, remember when I said that I heard the door close and that I thought my father came home? He's not here. There's NO ONE here! I looked everywhere! Then I thought that maybe someone was breaking into the house. But I checked every room and every closet. There's no one here!
"This isn't the first time this has happened to me either." he said.
"When I was little, sometimes I would hear the sound of a heavy door whooshing shut when there was nobody else was home. Then I heard that same sound two weeks ago. When I was talking to you on the phone a few minutes ago, I heard the same thing. It sounds like the 'whooshing' sound of a heavy door slamming shut. I though it was just one of my parents coming home and slamming the door to the garage shut. Fucking strange!."
I don't remember what happened after this point, but I do remember going to his house on a later date. We told his mother about it and she sweetly chuckled and said that D was just hearing things.
Then one day, not more than a month later, my friend and I were hanging out at his house after school. His parents wouldn't be home for hours, so we just played outdoors before coming inside to cool off.
I remember it very clearly. Being the macho kids that we were, we turned up his new stereo system up to 9 or 10. The stereo had two speaker at opposite sides of his bookcase and we faced each other with one ear on our own speaker. We wanted to see who would last the longest! We kept up with this stupid contest and started to laugh when I suddenly heard it.
WHOOSH!! But we both gave each other a shocked look and I knew that he heard it too. Even with the stereo blasting, it was loud and distinct. Immediately, he turned off the stereo and said to me "You heard that, didn't you?"
" I sure did!" I said. "Sounds like someone slammed a door. Let's check if one of your parents came home."
Thinking that someone was trying to break into the house and knowing that this sound happened to D before, each of us picked up a baseball bat and quietly made our way around the house.
We walked over to the door leading to the garage and opened it. Darkness. Nobody had opened the garage door and come in. Then we went, room by room, and stealthily checked every place where someone could hide. We scared each other half to death on the last closet. We yelled at the imaginary burglar in the closet to get out. Then when I yanked open the door, the sleeves of one of the shirts inside reached out from the wind of the door opening. This provided some much needed comic relief, but we both decided to go out to the park and not come back till D's father and mother returned to the house. (Come on! We were just 11 year old kids!!)
I definitely heard the same sound that D had earlier described to me. It sounds like the whooshing of a big door closing without the final slam. Whatever it was, both myself and D were at pains to explain what caused the sound. Whatever it was, I guess it didn't like our loud music. Even better, I guess the "something" that made the sounds was pretty entertained in the end by watching D and I go all around the house with bats. Maybe this is why it never made that sounds again.