It was shortly after my thirtieth birthday that I became a landlord for the first time. After a few years working full-time at a tech startup, it’d finally been acquired by a huge multinational conglomerate, leaving me sitting comfortably with more money than I knew what to do with. I turned to my older relatives to consult their opinion on the matter.
“Invest in property,” they said. “It’ll preserve its value and give you a reliable source of passive income.”
And so I purchased a small little two-storey residential complex on the other side of town, a quiet little neighbourhood near the sea. The plan was to live on the ground floor and sublet the upper level, which should be able to command a pretty penny based on its spectacular ocean view. The area itself was peaceful and undisturbed, yet shockingly cheap due to its close proximity to the local cemetery.
Little did I know that that would lead to the spookiest encounter of my entire life.
After posting some ads online, I quickly received interest from a few prospective tenants. While most of them had tried to haggle down the price, there had been a sweet old man with kind eyes, wrinkly skin and a snowy white beard who’d actually put in an offer above my asking price, which I accepted immediately.
“He must be looking for a quiet retirement home near the ocean,” I thought. “If he’s got a ton of money to spend, then that’s just a wonderful side benefit for me.”
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
In the weeks after he moved in, I started observing some strange phenomena, especially after dark. Living by the sea, I was no stranger to the occasional strong gusts of wind, but recently there’d seemed to be unexpected whooshing howling noises that sounded eerily like human screams. To add to the oddities, there would be occasional flashes of white light that streaked past, yet when I opened the curtains to investigate, there were no sources to be found.
It wasn’t until one night that I found out what was actually going on when I heard a heated argument going on upstairs. I found it strange since I was certain the old man lived alone and decided to investigate.
Boy, was I in for a surprise.
I put on a pair of slippers and popped outside, quickly glancing up towards the second floor. White ethereal light was emanating from inside the upstairs apartment. I walked up the stairs and stole a peek through one of the windows where the blinds hadn’t been drawn completely, and almost pissed myself when I saw what was going on.
Dressed in flowing white robes, the old man was being yelled at by a ghostly apparition. It was a slightly transparent figure of an old lady, levitating in mid-air seemingly with no corporeal form, circling the old man like a shark while simultaneously berating him with a shrill voice.
“HOW DARE YOU,” the ghost lady was shrieking. “TREAT YOUR DEAD WIFE THIS WAY!”
“It’s been a grave misunderstanding!” the man replied defensively. “I… I… didn’t mean to! It was an honest mistake, I swear!”
“IT’S A SIMPLE QUESTION” the lady continue screeching. “HAVE YOU, OR HAVE YOU NOT, BEEN SEEING OTHER GHOSTS???”
“I just wanted to see you, darling!” he started shouting, voice straining with desperation. “You have no idea how hard it is to find someone in an entire cemetery!”
This was a conversation that I didn’t want any part of, and not just because one of the participants was a ghost.
“IF YOU LIKE OTHER DEAD WOMEN SO MUCH,” the lady sneered. “WHY DON’T YOU BE WITH THEM INSTEAD?”
Then with a commanding whoosh, the old woman disappeared, never to be seen again.
I only saw my tenant a handful of times after the incident, before he soon passed away and was buried in the local cemetery. Though he had previously been a rather cheery and mild-mannered gentleman, I could tell that towards the end, there was a growing disdain and bitterness that was gradually creeping into his soul, one hell-bent on seeking vengeance in the afterlife.
Sometimes, when the wind howls along the seaside, I think I can still hear the constant bickering and arguing of the dead couple.
