Julie Achteroff

When I was a little girl of five or six I went travelling with my family in our travel trailer all around the southwest, including an Indian reservation in Taos. It was in a trailer park where my younger sister and I met a slightly older boy whom we made friends with at the playground.

The boy’s name evades me now, but he ended up inviting us to his trailer to “see something neat.” We followed him to his trailer, which was empty. I don’t know where his parents were, but I remember wondering why a boy his age was alone.

We sat in his living area for a bit when he told us to come look at his bathroom. We followed him in, and saw a regular, small trailer bathroom with a roll of toilet paper on the back of the toilet and a bathtub, along with a sink. Everything looked pretty normal. Then he told us to go back in the other room, which we did.

Then he told us to come back and look in the bathroom again. We did as he said, following him back into the bathroom, wondering why in the world he wanted to show it to us again. Well, the truth of the matter became clear as soon a I turned the corner and peeked into the bathroom once more.

Where there had once been a plain old roll of toilet paper on the back of the toilet was now the disembodied head of a real live ghost! I could see the face and also right through it. And in the bathtub was a full-bodied ghost! They looked just like the ghostly apparitions you see at the Haunted House at Disneyland. I don’t remember if they moved or not, but I sure did. I and my sister ran back out to the living area of the boy’s trailer as fast as we could. I looked back to see if the boy was coming out, too. That’s when I heard a strange moaning sound. I was terrified. But I couldn’t leave when the boy was still in there.

Moments later he came running out with what looked like white cream of some kind all over his face, and finger trail marks in it. He ran screaming out of the bathroom and straight out of the trailer, never to be seen or heard of by me again. My sister and I ran out, too, all the way back to our own trailer.

I remember trying to tell my mother about what had happened. I was very young, so she didn’t take me seriously, just telling me there was no such thing as ghosts. This story has stayed with me throughout my life. Sometimes I think there really were ghosts in that boy’s trailer; other times I think maybe his parents worked for Disney and had this trick set up in their trailer. I guess I’ll never know.