Neighborhood Nightmare

The neighborhood was different. Darker. Everyone could sense it, but no one wanted to talk about it. Who could blame them, though? Suicide wasn’t exactly the most welcome of subject matters. The topic of ghosts was even more taboo.

The trouble had begun in La Crosse on August 1, 1904: the day that Nicolai Holmbo hung himself in the front room of his house. From the moment his body was found, the neighborhood was shaken to its core. After all, those sorts of tragedies weren’t supposed to happen so close to home. But as Holmbo’s neighbors soon discovered, suicide was only the first of many horrors to come.

A husband and wife enjoying a quiet evening stroll were among the first to encounter Holmbo’s ghost.

“Oh, Henry, look at that!” exclaimed Mrs. Carlson, as the couple happened past the vacant house.

A startled Mr. Carlson flinched at the frantic tone in his wife’s voice. But when he saw what had frightened her in the first place, his blood ran cold.

A white-shrouded phantom stood at one of the house’s windows. The ghostly specter remained motionless for a moment, but then it became animated, swinging its arms and gesturing wildly.

Mr. and Mrs. Carlson hurried away from the ghastly site. They chose not to walk past that house again.

Furthermore, a neighbor living across the street was taken aback by the brilliant lights that shone from within the home almost every night.

“It’s not natural,” he told his wife. “There’s something evil inside that house.”

As if to confirm his suspicions, terrible, disheartening cries began to emanate from within the Holmbo residence.

“That does it,” declared the neighbor. “I’m going to fetch the police.”

When officers arrived on the scene, the screams grew louder. The policemen rushed toward the empty house. However, the instant they stepped foot onto the yard, the lights went out and the cries stopped.

A thorough search of the place turned up empty. No one was found inside.

Not surprisingly, the old Holmbo residence remained vacant for several decades. However, in recent years, it has once again become a private residence.