The Eyes in the Closet

Informant: Male/19 years old/mixed ancestry
Location: Hilo High School, Big Island

During my junior year of high school, my English teacher was pretty weird. She was a hippy-for lack of a better word- and would often describe having "weird psychic feelings" to the class.

So one day, we are all sitting in class doing our work when the teacher suddenly stands up and says, "Someone is watching me in that closet."

Everybody laughs, thinking this is another one of her not-so-psychic episodes, but the teacher is dead serious.

"I'm not kidding guys, I feel like there is something in that closet, watching us and wanting to cause harm," she continues.

So everybody is pretty nervous now. We know that our teacher is pretty crazy: she walks everywhere barefoot and thinks she has psychic intuitions, yet there was no denying the fear in her voice. Something was scaring our teacher, and that was scaring us.

And so of course, of all people, I'm asked to open the closet.

I open the closet, and there is nobody in there. But, somebody had drawn a big pair of eyes with a sharpie on the back wall of the closet. The eyes were very menacing, and it just didn't seem right that someone would draw eyes in a closet that was locked a majority of class time. Honestly, it was very creepy and it gave me chicken skin.

Maybe it was all an elaborate hoax that our teacher played on us; an attempt to freak us out after all those times we made fun of her. But after that, that closet always bothered me. I always felt as if someone was watching me from that closet. Other people also complained about similar feelings of being watched from the closet.

The Meatroom

Informant: Male/31/ Mixed ancestry
Location: Kauai

The mid 80’s was a good time for business, especially in the grocery retail sector. Workforce was healthy and sales were on the upswing. Tourism was starting to gain steam and energy costs were down. One store in particular had a hard time retaining workers, particularly in the meat department. Keep in mind that most meat cutters in this one particular store were of Filipino ancestry and speaking out was not something they did. But it started to gain attention when meat cutters would be hired one day, they would work the night shift, and they would quit. No two weeks notice, no nothing, they would just walk off. Eventually management was tasked with filling in and one particular manager, Seiji, and his encounter over a series of three nights is what has prompted me to telling you this tale.

Seiji

"No one wants to go there! I won’t even go there! That place is haunted and it is just not safe." Seiji and I had a chance to talk one day. He had since been retired for over 12 years but is still visibly shaken from his experience. You gotta understand, the workers back then, many of them came from the plantation and would not let management know. They refused to speak out against the company or their bosses. They came and went until finally I got stuck working nights in the meat room. My primary responsibility was to clean carcasses and prep them for the next day’s butchers and clean the meat room down.

The first night I was there, the store had just closed and it was me and the office manager left in the store. I walked up front to let her out and told her I still had to shoot the meat room down. As I walked back the music started playing over the speakers. How weird! We always turn the music off and I swear it was off, but it just turned on! I walked back, opened the office door and turned it back off.

As I rounded the corner the light in the meat room was off and I swear I left it on. I hit the switch but no light. I flicked the switch up and down but still no light. I walked up front to the office to grab the keys to the storage room and as I headed to the back office I noticed that the light in the meat room was back on again. By now I was starting to get a little scared but growing up in Waimea Valley, we encounter lots of strange happenings. I had to shoot the meat room down and sterilize the equipment before I went home and since there were no carcasses to clean, I was looking forward to getting home a little early.

Tuesday Night

I felt very groggy all day and called in to see if it was okay to come in right before closing. Our manger said that it was okay but there were three pig carcasses that came in and they needed to be prepped for tomorrow. I came in shortly before 10 p.m. just in time to let her out and start work. As I walked to the meat room I was suddenly overwhelmed by the smell of rotting flesh. It was horrible! Smelled like a dead rat! This is not something that you want in a grocery store and definitely not something you want in your meat room. As soon as I flicked on the light, the smell was gone. I tried to walk around to see if I could smell it but it was no longer present. I told myself how funny the tricks that your mind plays on you. I opened the walk in chill and saw three pig carcasses hanging from stainless steel meat hooks. They were butterflied and needed some prepping for tomorrow. Prepping these carcasses involved butchering them into smaller more manageable cuts so the butchers can handle them better to get you pork cutlets, tenderloins, and Boston butts wrapped up and placed on the shelf for you to buy. I unhooked my first carcass and wheeled it to the cutting room table. All of a sudden, I heard the distinct sound of the meat saw buzzing away.

What the hell!!! A meat room is a place of safety, all equipment is secured, the floors are clean and slip resistant, and there is a place for everything and everything is in its place. So for a meat saw, which is basically a table mounted circular saw starts to go off on its own, it sends shivers up you spine. I walked over to hit the switch and noticed it was in the off position. I went to pull the plug and it wasn’t even plugged in! By this time I was truly petrified with fear. I started to run towards the door when all of a sudden it shut off. Back then I tried to convince myself that there must have been some electric current that was store in the motor but we all know this is physically impossible as there are no batteries in a saw.

And that smell, it started up again.

The smell of decomposing flesh was thick and overwhelmed me as I dry heaved three or four times. I walked around trying to locate the source but could not find it. All of a sudden, I heard a soft buzzing sound. It sounded like hundreds of flies hovering but there were none in sight. I walked slowly to the walk in chill and put my ear to the door. I could hear a sound that sounded like hundreds if not thousands of flies were in the walk in chill. Suddenly from in the chill I could hear the sound of metal creaking. Squeak squeak squeak. Like a squeaky tire. I opened up the door and what I saw next still haunts me to this day.

One of the remaining pig carcasses that was hanging on a hook was swinging back and forth as if someone was pushing it. And when I say swinging it was almost hitting the roof of the chill. I tried to run, my mind told me to run but I froze. I couldn’t move. And there I was, watching as this carcass dangled from a meat hook swinging back and forth like a kid being pushed by their daddy on the swings. I don’t remember what happened next except I awoke the next morning from our boss’s tapping on my window. I had slept in my car in the store parking lot. I rolled my window down and he was furious.

"Seiji! You left the goddam meat room in a mess! The walk in chill door was open and all the meat has to be thrown out!" I tried to explain, but I could tell he thought I was making it up. I ended up being suspended for three days. I live alone, and my closest neighbor is a five minute walk down a dirt path. I never felt lonely or afraid of being alone but those three days were hard to deal with. I mentioned it to no one except co-workers were calling and asking what the hell happened. I am fortunate that my boss had the courtesy to keep our short conversation to himself. I returned to work but refused to take the night duties. I was fortunate to be put back on my regular schedule. My boss talked about the incidence once and had decided that the long nights and my body’s sleep pattern had caused my mind to play tricks on me. I didn’t imagine this. Those extreme incidents never happened again but I would hear stories from time to time that knives were misplaced, or equipment had moved, their was even talk in the break room of a saw turning itself on but it was typical lunch room chatter and they usually dismissed it with blaming a co worker or how the company needed to buy a new saw.

One night, there was a false alarm and our boss went in to reset the alarm, I don’t know what happened but the very next day, he had rescheduled our shifts to eliminate anyone from staying in the store past closing. He asked management to bless the store and a few weeks later a kahuna came in. We all walked with her as she chanted and sprinkled water mixed with Hawaiian salt. She dipped her ti leaf into a bowl and sprinkled the walls, the workers, and the floor. She stopped in front of the meat room and her chants grew dim and she had stopped sprinkling her salt water. She stood in front of the door and her eyes were wide as if she had saw or felt something terrifying. She turned back to the company President and whispered something in his ear. I looked over at my boss and his eyes were wide and I knew that he had encountered something that night when he came into the store to reset the alarm. The company president turned to us and said, "She’s going in by herself so we can all just wait here. It is too cramped and we can’t take the risk of anyone getting hurt with all the dangerous equipment we have in there."We waited outside for 20 minutes until finally she emerged drenched in sweat and looking as if she had run a marathon. She told us everything is fine now, everything we’ll be okay. We walked the rest of the store and enjoyed some pupu and refreshments in the break room after.

Nothing really happened after that night. A few years ago I ran into the old Hawaiian lady who blesses our store. She hadn’t even aged a bit. I asked her if she remembered blessing the store and she smiled and said, “I have blessed so much stores it is hard to remember which one.” Instead of stating which store I figured why relive a moment that I was trying to put behind me. So I said farewell, kissed her goodbye and walked off. I took a few steps and heard the old Hawaiian lady say, “The meat room was built over the graves of three young children, they meant no harm. They was just being kolohe.”

My hair stood on the back of my neck as I turned around. She stood there, smiling. "They died many years ago, before the store was built. They died playing when their house burned down. They were playing with the oil lamp. They died from being mischievous. They were still causing mischief, I had to scold them. You know kids, they are kolohe"

I never saw the old Hawaiian lady again.

Invisible Passenger

Informant: Male/30/Filipino ancestry
Location: Koloa, Kauai

I was driving to work one night and decided to take the bypass road. I was following this truck for most of the way. We came up to this point in the road that crossed an old cemetery, when the truck ahead of me pulled over suddenly. I thought that something was wrong with his truck, so I was going to pull over and ask if he needed any help. The truck was pulled over right under a street light, so I could see the driver in the driver's seat. Then I saw the passenger door open.

Nobody was there.

I saw the door open, and it looked like someone got into the passengers seat of the car because I saw the truck shift as if under the weight of a person. But under the street light I could see inside, and there was nobody there, but the driver was talking as if someone was sitting next to him.

I decided it was wise to just continue on to work.

The Running Man

Informant: Male/30/Filipino Ancestry
Location: Tunnel of Trees, Kauai

I was out one night with some friends partying. Believe it or not, I didn't have one drink or smoke anything weird. I was dead sober that night. Around 3am I was driving through the Tunnel of Trees on my way home. All of a sudden I see something out of the corner of my eye.

A man was running along side my car.

I wasn't driving 5 mph. I was driving normal speeds, probably around 50 mph. I couldn't see his face or make out facial features since it was dark, but I could see his arms and torso pumping as he was running. So I was like "forget this," and I gunned it. 80 mph. The guy catches up to me, running. So I gun it again. 110 mph. The guy is still running next to my car. I look over at him, and all I see are red, glowing eyes.

The next day I told my aunty what happened, and she said whoever that was wanted me dead. That road is really windy, and I could have easily driven off the cliff.

The Woman Next Door

Informant: Male/40/Hawaiian-mixed ancestry
Location: Aliomanu, Kauai

Our family owned a beach house on the north-east side of Kaua'i. Our whole family, cousins and aunty's and uncles, would spend the summer there. The lone occupant of the small house next to us was a woman whom my family was friendly with. We would see her all the time, and it seemed she always wore the same clothes every day, with a big hat. Then one day, we found out she had died.

One night me and 3 of my cousins went down to the beach house to have a bon fire and some drinks. We were talking story and having a good time, talking about ghosts and things like that. When 2am rolled around, we had all passed out right there on the beach in front of the house. All of a sudden we were awoken by a soft tap on our shoulders.

I opened my eyes, and the woman from next door was standing in front of me, wearing the same clothes and the big hat she always wore. She said to us, "You boys better get in the house."

We ran into the house. We had all seen her, and we all knew she was the dead woman from next door.

More Than a Human Visitor

Informant: Female/24/Japanese-European ancestry
Location: Makiki, Oahu

One sunny afternoon Jane was doing her laundry while her roommate, Sara, took a nap in the next room. The laundry room was next door to their apartment, so on this particular day the door was unlocked. Jane retrieved her clothes from the dryer and went to her room to fold her clothes, but she forgot to lock the door.

Once in her room, she thought she saw something in the hall in the corner of her eye, but when she looked up, nothing was there. After a few minutes she heard Sara talking to herself. She figured Sara was just having another odd dream since she was saying “Hello? Who are you? What is your name little girl?” Jane didn’t pay any attention to it and kept folding. A few minutes later she heard Sara say, “No not on that. Let’s go watch it in the living room on the tv.”
That got Jane’s attention.

She put her clothes down and was about to go into Sara’s room when Sara appeared in the hall with a nine year old girl carrying a DVD. She was guiding the girl into the living room and asked Jane why she let the little girl into the apartment. Jane couldn’t believe the little girl was there and said she didn’t let her in. Just as Sara got the little girl to the living room, the girl lost interest and walked out of the apartment without a word. Sara followed her into the hall and saw a woman calling for her. They assumed the woman was the child’s mother. She apologized for the girl barging in like she did.

They shut the door and started to talk about what happened. Neither one could believe it. Apparently when the girl walked into Sara’s room, she went straight for her computer to play a DVD. It was odd because it seemed like the girl knew exactly where to go in an apartment she had never been in. She never said a word to Sara either. They decided to forget the incident and write it off as a bazaar day.

Six months went by, and the building went up for sale. Jane and Sara had to move out. They needed a break from packing and cleaning, so they went to a friend’s house to relax. Somehow the conversation was focused on ghost stories before everyone was about to leave. By the end of the conversation no one wanted to go home alone, and Jane and Sara were glad they had each other.

On the drive home, Sara asked Jane if she ever felt weird in their apartment. Jane asked her what she meant. Sara said that she felt a bad presence in the apartment. She started to notice it around the time the little girl appeared in our apartment. When she was in the bathroom in the morning, she often didn’t want to wash her face because she didn’t want to close her eyes. Or when she was in the shower at night she didn’t want to close her eyes, and sometimes felt like someone was on the other side of the curtain. The shower curtain that they had was opaque so she could tell no one was there, but she felt like someone…someone bad…was in the bathroom with her.

Jane just stared at her in shock and Sara tried to convince her that she wasn’t crazy, and went on to tell her that when her sister visited a few months after they had moved in, her sister had the same experience, and said that she didn’t feel comfortable in the apartment. After a few moments, Jane told Sara that she knew exactly what she was talking about and felt the same things. Jane however thought it was because it was her first time living on her own, and the times that she felt those things, Sara wasn’t at home. So Jane shrugged the bad feelings off as just being afraid of being alone at night.

By this time the two roommates were close to their apartment, but neither one wanted to go back at this point. So Jane kept on driving. Sara continued to tell her that she felt a really bad feeling in her room. She often felt a presence in her closet, a female presence. She even admitted that one night when Jane was away for the weekend, she was so afraid of sleeping in her room that she slept in Jane’s bed. She felt safe in Jane’s room. Jane told Sara that many times she would pick up the mail or have something she wanted to leave for Sara and went to put it in her room, but always felt like she shouldn’t be in there. It was just an eerie bad feeling. Jane shrugged if off thinking it was because it was Sara’s room and she just didn’t want to be invading her privacy. But Sara told her that was how she felt nearly every day stepping into her own room.

Sara said that every now and then when she woke up in the morning, she would feel a pressing on her chest and she wouldn’t be able to move, get up, or say anything. Eventually she found out that if she swore out loud or even in her mind, it would go away. And sure enough, every time she did that when she felt pressed, it would almost instantly stop. The two girls agreed that they felt the bad feelings only in the bathroom, Sara’s room, and the path that led between it.

It was really late and Jane was too tired to drive anymore, so the two roommates went home and did their best to forget what happened. They couldn’t believe that they each felt this way for months but never talked about it until that night. But they were sure glad that they would be moving in a few weeks.

The Scent of Pikake

Informant: Male/age 63 years/ Caucasian-Hawaiian ancestry

Location: Oahu, Diamond Head/ Los Angeles, Silverlake District, California

In my family, there is an old family tale that if you ever smell pikake when there are no flowers to be seen, it means someone who has "passed" is in your presence. After my Dad passed, my Mom claimed she used to get the pikake scent all the time in our house at Diamond Head, particularly in the kitchen for some reason. At the same time that she'd smell pikake, our dog Ele'ele, who simply worshiped my Dad, would go bonkers, barking like crazy.

Curiously, on my last visit to Hawaii I drove by the old house and the new owners were out front so I stopped and introduced myself. When I asked what they thought of the house, the wife just blurted out: "We used to think the place was haunted." When I asked why she thought that, the woman said: "We've lived here about 20 years and when we first moved in, from time to time, I swear I could heard someone strumming an ukulele out on the lanai. No one in our family plays an ukulele and we don't even own one. This ukulele things eventually stopped about 15 years ago. Then, there was this dog. Once in awhile I'd be looking out the kitchen window and see this black dog lying in the grass in the back yard. The yard is completely fenced and when we'd go into the backyard to check, the dog was never there. None of the neighbors had a dog like that. We stopped seeing the dog about the time the ukulele music stopped."

I then wished the couple well and, with chicken skin in full eruption, I left without telling them that my Dad, who passed away in the house, was an expert ukulele player nor did I mention our black dog, Ele'ele. I later realized that their ukulele and dog experiences probably ceased about the same time that my Mom passed away. I'm hoping they all found one another in the hereafter.

In 1993 I moved from Oregon to Los Angeles to accept a new job and immediately began looking to buy a home. One day, a friend of mine, my realtor and I went to see a house in the Silverlake district. My realtor told us that no one was home and we could spend as much time at the house as we wished.

After one initial tour of the house, I was very impressed and definitely interested in it. I then decided to go back upstairs to take another look at the bedrooms while my friend and realtor chatted out by the pool. As I got to the top of the stairs, an elderly Asian woman walked past me down the hall. As she passed, she glanced at me, expressionless, and said nothing. Startled, I immediately apologized for intruding, explained that I had thought no one was home, turned around, and began quickly going back down the stairs.

When I got outside, I told my realtor that someone was home because an old lady had just scared the crap out of me upstairs. The realtor swore no one was home and called the listing agent who confirmed that a young couple lived in the house and they were both at work. As she was talking on the phone, we all noticed a strong sent of jasmine (pikake). I looked around and saw no indication of blooming jasmine. It was then that I remembered our old family tale.

At that, I said, "Let's get the hell out of here. This place gives me the creeps." Just as I said this, we heard a loud bang like a door slamming upstairs and we immediately raced one another for the front door. As we darted through the living room I took a closer look at a large portrait of an elderly Asian woman that was hanging on the wall above the fireplace. It was the lady I had seen upstairs!

When we got back to our cars, I told the realtor about the picture of the lady and I insisted that my realtor find out who she was. The listing agent reported that the picture was that of the owner's Mother who had passed away several years ago. Needless to say, I did not make an offer on the house!