It's almost Halloween and so I thought I would share a true story of something that happened to me when I was in 7th grade. 'Tis the season.
Things go bump in the night.
The ice maker deposits its product with a crash. Heating and air systems whoosh comfort to us, causing drapes to dance and blinds to rattle above the vents. Cats pitter patter along the baseboards, casting shadows on the wall. The dog, stretched out long on the sofa, snores and twitches, eventually uttering a "whup, whup, whup" as he dreams of chasing rabbits.
Yes, things definitely go bump in the night. They wake us, sometimes
with a start, but we are easily eased back to sleep with the comfort
that everything is all right. Every noise has a logical explanation - a
source that is of no harm. We surrender to the darkness of night, our
bodies craving - demanding - the release of the day for the sake of
restoration. What happens around us in that darkness becomes a matter of faith that we will be safe.
... that we will not be jolted awake by the sound of our own name whispered in our ear by a disembodied voice.
What? That never happened to you? Well, it did to me. Here's my story, as I recall it.
As I've
mentioned before, I grew up in a family of renters who moved around a lot. My mom would browse the newspaper for ads and we'd take drives to check the place out, peeking in windows of an empty house and walking around the yard, scouting for a garden. She'd schedule a showing and begin decorating the house in her mind. We'd gather discarded cardboard boxes from a local grocery store and begin packing, waiting for the month to end, as a courtesy to the existing landlord.
Such was the case of the little house on Boerste (pronounced burst-ee) Road. It was an absolutely charming little cottage with a garage (we'd never had a garage), a big side porch, basement and attic. It was located just outside of town, which my mother considered rural. It wasn't - there were houses all around and the road was paved - but there was a horse barn and horses, and several acres of wooded property behind it that now belong to the previous owners' son. He had inherited it at is parents' passing and didn't want to part with his childhood home, which was just across the road from his own beautiful home.
We would be the caretakers of his beloved parents' home and we would have an attentive landlord. Win-win.
We moved in at the beginning of November of my 7th grade year. My mother's husband was a truck driver and gone most of the time on the road, so it was just Mom and me to tend to the little house. She forfeited the larger of the three bedrooms - the master bedroom - so I would have more personal space, which was very important to an almost teen.
Almost immediately after moving in, I started to have experiences.
For example, I was in the basement fetching a laundry basket. As I walked up the steps, I felt the claustrophobic press of a presence immediately behind me on the steps. I glanced over my shoulder and caught a glimpse of ...
something. Panicked, I dashed to the top of the steps with an "eeeee" squeal that was gaining volume with each step, and looked back to see ...
nothing. Just shadows in a poorly lit basement.
Still? Creepy. And very real.
Full disclosure: I have always had a
very active imagination, especially when I was a young child. I was also an insomniac and the only way I could sleep was with my mom in her bed. Her husband was not a fan of this arrangement and it caused
a lot of conflict (gross understatement). Though by my tween years this condition had subsided, there was no way I was going to tell anyone in my family that I was chased up the steps by Nobody and reintroduce that level of family stress and drama again.
I told myself, as I'd so often been told by others in my youth, "It's just your imagination."
On another occasion, I was to pack a box to the attic. I flipped on the light and, at the top of steps for briefest moment, stood a figure - which immediately shot out of sight. No noise, no features ... just a dark shape, really. I dropped the box on the step and shut the attic door. Good enough.
Despite the odd spikes of my over-active imagination, I liked the property and wanted to explore it. It was cool that we had horses in our backyard and my friends and I would visit the horses and venture for an explore in the woods with our family Spaniel, Brent, tagging along.
One afternoon, I was looking for Brent, who had the run of the property and could not be found, and I cut through the horse barn. One of the horses was still as a statue, staring toward the house. Not wanting to spook him, I stepped in front of him and he suddenly insinuated himself between me and the fence. I stepped to the right and so did he. I dove past him and then up and over the fence, hitting the ground on the other side with a thud.
The horse was staring in my direction, but just past me, at the house again - frozen - as though he had never moved. He was staring at the window to my bedroom.
Stupid, creepy horse.
That night, I was awakened by a scratching noise outside my window ... no, wait, I realized, it was
in the wall behind my bed. I also heard a low, guttural growl outside the window. I scrambled for the nightstand light and as the bulb flashed on, a shadow at my side disappeared.
Woke mom up for that one.
It was probably Brent outside having cornered a critter. Go back to bed, she groggily insisted. I did ...
with her ... in her bed.
Sure enough, Brent cheerily greeted me the next morning, excited to show me he had dragged a rotting animal carcass of some sort from the woods and placed it on display in the breezeway. Yuck.
Stupid, creepy dog.
The next night, I awoke to the scratching in the wall again and this time when the light came on, the shadow was above me, hovering, as though looking down on me - all for a split second and then gone.
And thus began the nightly ritual of sleeping with the light on.
Another night I shot up with jolt to, "Lorri" - my name, in a hoarse whisper that was neither male nor female, spoken directly in my ear. There was no shadow, no movement in the lighted room. But I knew what I heard and I was chilled to the bone.
Things were getting personal.
And thus began the nightly ritual of "sleeping" - there was less and less actual sleep involved - with the light and the TV on.
Things continued - I'd catch a glimpse of
shadow in the bedroom as I passed it, in the basement, by the window,
etc., but I dismissed or ignored them as best I could, blaming lighting casts or my notorious
imagination.
It all came to a head for me, however, one morning as I was getting ready for school. I was home alone (mom worked breakfast shift at a restaurant) and I was standing in the bathroom, brushing my long auburn hair, when I caught sight of a shadow passing in the reflection behind me.
This time, I was genuinely afraid: Had someone - an intruder - broken into the house?
I was shaking with utter fear, frozen in my place, but my mind was racing with escape scenarios: to the phone to call for help or straight out the door into the dark morning. I grabbed my Aqua Net to use as makeshift mace.
Just then I caught another glimpse of the shadow down the hall, flashing into the living room, and felt the familiar shiver. And relief: there was no
person in my home.
And that's when I had an epiphany: I was truly afraid of the
living, but basically just annoyed - startled - by the entity that seemed so curious about me. And that's when I decided to do something about it.
Maybe it was the lack of sleep or the early teen hormones, but I'd had enough. I stomped into the living room and declared at the top of my lungs,
"I do not fear you! Do you hear me? I do not fear you! You cannot hurt me! So leave me alone! LEAVE ME ALONE!"
Pretty dramatic, huh?
And the thing is, I
was left alone after that. No more shadows, no more chills. The light and the TV stayed on at night, but sleep returned.
A few weeks later, I got off the school bus and passed my mom talking to the landlord at the end of the driveway. I didn't know what they were talking about until I stepped in the house and encountered piles of empty boxes.
We were moving again.
The next day.
We'd only been in the little cottage about three months. It was February and spitting snow outside. She'd never mentioned house hunting, but she'd found a rental in town that was much larger and in a nice neighborhood ... and also for sale. So basically, we'd be renting a house that, by summer, would be sold out from underneath us, forcing us to move again. She didn't seem to care.
It was a while before I asked my mom why she decided to move so suddenly. I had assumed she didn't like country living, the smell of the horses, the small house or basement laundry room.
"That house was haunted," she said, lighting a cigarette. "I saw shadows, like just a glimpse of someone passing by. I saw it in the basement and down the hall sometimes."
I didn't say a word, but just sat there in disbelief.
She continued, "One night when I was sleeping, I swore I heard somebody whisper my name right in my ear."
She took a drag from her cigarette and matter-of-factly declared as the smoke billowed around her:
"And I ain't putting up with that shit."
