GUARDIAN TALES...WEBMASTERS TALES

(NOTE: While I tend to play the part of the skeptic on the topic of paranormal encounters, the few months I lived in this house left a lasting mark. Even now, in 2001, 18+ years after the events, writing the story is difficult... it will be posted in installments, in part due to length. Names have been changed of other people involved, but they have been good enough over the years to talk with me about some of the events they witnessed/experienced with me, so I could have confirmation that they did indeed, occur...

At any rate, these are the encounters that inspired the creation of and name for this website.   I will be happy to answer questions, just email them to: guardiantales@hotmail.com )

PART I - BEGINNING

As a non-driver, I carry very few keys, only needing ones for the house locks as a rule. Currently I only carry ONE. Until a few years ago, however, there was another key on the ring, for a house I no longer lived in, and would never return to. The key, a reminder of my experiences there, was to the front door of the house in this story...

In early October in 1984, I was 25 years old, and delighted to be moving to a rented house in Chehalis, Washington, where my lifelong best friend ("CC") and her sister ("Sis") had lived for several months before my arrival. I was familiar with the house, because I had visited there for a week during a prior vacation. CC and Sis were both divorced. CC had 2 daughters, aged 3 and 6, and Sis had a 3 year old daughter.

The 6 of us fit comfortably in the house; CC's bedroom and the room the girls shared were downstairs; the second storey was open, and Sis had her room at the end opposite the stairs. I didn't own any furniture at the time, and didn't have a bed. However, CC and Sis worked at the same convenience store on the graveyard shift, on alternating days. I just slept in the bed of whoever was at work, or on the loveseat in the living room. The house was fairly large, with a long galley-style kitchen that opened out onto a covered porch, whose outside door faced the side door to the garage. You could also enter the house from the living room. There was the one bathroom, the 2 bedrooms downstairs, a breakfast nook, living room with fireplace and a dining area. I believe we had electric heat; there was a floor to ceiling heat register in the hallway, between the door to the upstairs, and the girls' bedroom.   As so many rental houses are, the walls were all painted off white, and the carpeting was a nondescript colour.

I don't recall exactly when I began to notice a sense of wrongness about the house. I do know it was subtle at first, a sense of someone there and seeing no one; of realizing that the girls' bedroom was always several degrees cooler than the rest of the house, in spite of the large heat register being right next to the doorway, and the window letting in the morning sun. Excited to live there, I ignored these warnings as long as I could, until one night when CC asked me to go into the girls' bedroom and pull down the shade on the window, so the morning sunlight wouldn't wake them up too early. They had gone to bed later than usual, and CC wanted them to sleep in. I went in and to the window, noting the coolness of the room, and reached up for the window shade. The girls were sound asleep in the bunk beds to my right.

I couldn't seem to get a grip on the shade. As my fingers fumbled to grasp it, I found myself looking at the closet to my left. I hadn't turned on a light, but the room was well lit from the living room, and I could see clearly. Suddenly alarmed, I looked over at the girls, checking to see if they were all right. My heart started pounding, my breathing sped up, and I felt my eyes grow wide. I still struggled to get the damn shade in my hand to pull it down, but it slipped out of my fingers, forcing me to reach for it again.   And all the while, that horrid, nameless, overwhelming dread was sweeping over me, along with the overpowering urge to scream as loud as I could.

It had to have only lasted a few seconds; my fumbling with the shade, while CC kept talking behind me. My back was to her; I knew she couldn't see my desperate predicament; but I needed, really needed to shriek out my panic. My mouth opened, and I forced myself to talk in a normal tone while I got a grip on the damned shade at last and pulled it down easily to cover the window. Still chattering away to CC, I looked at the girls again, saw they were safe, and with one last glance at the ordinary appearing closet, turned and got out of the room, where the urge to scream left along with the terror. I found out much later from CC that I was speaking nonsense...all I knew was that I was not wanted in that room...

Then, one night at dinner, after the girls had left the table, I sat with CC and Sis and began asking questions. "Okay," I said, leaning forward on the table, gesturing to each one in turn. "I live here, and you live here, and the girls live here, right?" "Yes," CC said, looking at me oddly. I didn't blame her; I knew how I must have sounded, but I went on. "That's 6 people, right?" Slightly exasperated, CC said, "YES, that's right." I sat back in the chair and pointed with my left arm extended out to my side. "All right, then," I asked, "Who is THAT?   Who is the seventh one who lives here, who is standing right there watching us, and why didn't you tell me?" To my left, a few feet away, was a source of energy, an unseen entity who was watching the conversation. CC looked down and said, very quietly, "So it IS real, then."

Knowing I would sense the presence of an uninvited 'roomie', CC and Sis had waited until I moved in to see if I would do exactly what I had just done; begin asking questions, etc., confirming what they suspected. Not telling me beforehand left out the possibility of suggestion; and CC's quiet remark told me all I needed to know. We began talking about it then, and I was told about CC and Sis's experiences prior to my moving into the house...

-Webmaster-

End Part I

Part I    Part II    Part III    Part IV    Part V    Part VI   Part VII

Part VIII   Epilogue