READERS TALES
Never
Really Alone
This happened to me when
I moved in with a friend in Napa, California. This was 1992 and I never believed
in anything like this before. It was something for the movies or fiction as
far as I was concerned.
I started to notice little
things... like things not being where I put them hearing voices and
thinking it was the TV or the neighbors next door. I thought my roommate was
grabbing the things and forgetting were she would put them, which caused a
lot of tension as the weeks went by. I would find my notebooks in the freezer,
my car keys in the back yard... One time my purse was found hanging in the
tree. My roommate would deny doing these things, but we were the only ones
there. Needless to say, this caused a few fights.
I started to wonder if I
made the right choice by moving in with her. She was a good friend and couldn't
afford living there on her own. But I was beginning to think that I made a
bad decision about moving in.
One night we were watching
TV and we both heard a sound coming from the back door. We both thought someone
was trying to break in and we both ran outside because neither one of us wanted
to face the person. We went next door and called the police, and watched as
the lights in the house were turned off for a couple of minutes, and then
turned back on. The police finally arrived there and found nothing; even the
back door was still bolted. We told the officer about the lights going on
and off. He said he didn't see how anyone could have gotten in and had
found no one in there, scaring the hell out of us.
After that we jumped at any
sound we heard and didn't get much sleep for some time. I was scared that
I would wake up and see someone in my house that wasn't there just to say
hi! I ended up buying a hand gun so I wouldn't be to terrified if someone
would try to break in. It helped me sleep a little better at night knowing
I had some protection.
A couple of months went by
and everything seemed normal enough, I was not as scared as I was before.
I came home after work and found all the furniture rearranged, and I didn't
like it one bit. I thought my roommate had done it and we normally talk about
things like that before we actually do change the house around. So I thought
nothing of it and decided to wait until she came back to talk to her.
She came home a while later
and I asked her why she put things like she did and she thought I did it and
I knew I didn't. I said well it didn't move by itself now, did it? We
started to argue again until we heard whispering coming from one direction,
and then another. It seemed to jump all over the place, not staying
in one spot. The TV and stereo were off. We were beginning to
believe that we did have a ghost or something inside the house.
The TV would turn itself
off, the stereo would blast on and off. Then it decided to start throwing
things at us; cups, plates, remote controls... The blender would go off by
itself and we kept hearing a strange laughter. It would really act up and
then everything was calm down like nothing had happened. This was driving
the both of us crazy and we just wanted out of our lease.
Then it decided to show itself
to me. I was watching TV and it was about 2pm and I heard the usual sounds,
footsteps etc.., I would just turn up the TV to drown out the noise. But then
something caught my eye and I saw a man. He was just standing by the
dining room looking at me. He didn't look to happy to see me either, he just
glared at me and I was scared out of my wits. He started walking towards me
and I couldn't move, I was frozen with fear. You could see right through him!
All I could do was close my eyes and keep praying that he would just go away.
I opened my eyes and saw he was only inches from my face. All I could do was
curl up in a ball and cry, unable to get up and run like I wanted to.
I could hear the sound of his 'breathing', but I kept my eyes closed. This
lasted for ten minutes and then it was gone. I opened my eyes and it was like
nothing had happened. Until the TV turned off by itself; that made me run
for the door!
After that happened, I made
sure I wasn't the only one home, the only one living, anyway.) I made
my boyfriend come over when I didn't go to his place, or made sure my roommate
was there. She was having the same problems, but she would yell at him.
This didn't do any good, because after a while he started to yell back and
he cursed up a storm, rising from a normal tone to a yelling tone. One
night when my boyfriend stayed over, we were getting intimate, until
we heard That's right, do that s---!" My boyfriend got up and said, "Who in
the hell is here?" He turned on the lights looking for the voice he had heard.
I never told him about what was happening because I thought it would make
him think that I was crazy. He looked at me and asked who I had in here and
I just told him no one, it's a ghost! He looked at me and said 'What? "A ghost"?...no
way'.
He looked all over the house
thinking some other guy was there and even checked outside. He came back in
and turned off the lights and didn't say a word to me for a while. Then he
said to me, 'Could you please look over here....... Something is moving against
the wall.' I turned over and I saw a shadow
moving across the wall and I knew it was him. All you could see was
an outline, it blended in with the darkness. My boyfriend asked "if that was
what I was talking about." I was pretty scared and I told him, "Yes,
that's him." He got up once again and I think he made the stupidest
mistake...He said, "Come on out and fight me!" After a few moments,
the ghost replied with only two words..."F--- You!" That scared the
hell out of us, and we ended up sleeping in the living room.
In the
morning, my boyfriend woke up and could barely move. He thought sleeping
on the floor didn't do him any justice, but when I looked at him he had a
few bruises on his back and dried blood on his face from his nose. It
looked like he had been in a major fight, but he didn't know how it happened.
I always thought the ghost did it, since he wanted to fight it that night.
I guess it took him up on his offer, but I have no real proof of this claim.
After that, my roommate and I said screw the lease, and
told our landlord we wanted out! Within a week, he let us go, and we
moved out of that place. Two and a half years there was long enough.
I kept thinking, if the ghost really did beat on my boyfriend, what else was
it capable of doing? And what would the ghost have done to my roommate,
with the way she was always telling him off?
These
are the things that keep me awake at night...wondering about the 'what ifs'
if we had stayed for the full 5 years...
-April.
