SPECIAL MENTION 6
Ever Since I can Remember
(NOTE:
16-year old Kayla sent in these encounters...)
Greetings.
My name is Kayla and I am currently 16 years old. I live in Johnson County,
Arkansas.
Ever since I was a little girl, I have been a witness to things of the
paranormal. Since I was just a child, though, little things didn't scare me-
they were simply part of everyday life. I know I've always been sensitive to
these things, but cannot remember every little occurrence. I simply wish to
relate to you the most prominent experiences.
My first experience was when I was three years old. This was back in 1988 and
my mother had taken me over to her friend Gina's apartment. It was a small
apartment but it was two-story with carpeted stairs and two bedrooms. Gina's
son, Keaton, was my best friend at the time. We were playing upstairs while my
mother and Keaton's mother talked in the kitchen.
Keaton and I were sitting on the top step of the stairs, rolling cars down
them. We were having fun and he had a million and two of those little Matchbox
cars. Eventually though, we ran out of cars. So Keaton decided he wanted to
show me a video game of his.
If memory serves, his room was to the left of the stairs and his mother's room
was to the right with a bathroom in between. So Keaton and I sat in his room.
His TV was by the door so I was sitting basically in the door jam watching him
play his game. It was uninteresting to me so I began looking around me for
something else to focus on. I glanced at his mother's open door.
Standing in his mother's doorway was a man dressed in black- black leather
pants, black vest, black boots, over a maroon button-up. He just stood there,
hands on his hips, watching me for a minute before he turned and walked by her
bed and out of my sight. I didn't really think much of it, just turned my
attention back to Keaton's game.
After a few seconds, Keaton's mom called him downstairs. So we turned off the
game and went to the top step. Keaton told me to wait for him, he'd be right
back. So I watched him bound down the steps and turn the corner. The stairs
were walled off- no rail, just two walls on either side of the stairs. I stood
with my hands outstretched, trying to see if I could stretch my arms to reach
both walls.
Then, all of a sudden, I felt kind of funny, like almost scared of something.
As soon as the feeling came, it went away only to be replaced with two big
hands on my back. Before I knew it, I'd been pushed. Now, I remember rolling,
seeing ceiling then stairs, ceiling then stairs, but I don't remember ever
touching a single stair. It was as if I floated, doing flips, down the steps.
I was caught at the bottom and placed on my bottom on the last stair, dazed
but unharmed. I just sat there for a second, my tiny mind whirring. I glanced
at the top step but saw no one.
I hadn't made any noise falling because no one came to check on me until about
ten minutes later when mom came and told me it was time to leave. I don't know
who lifted me down the stairs, or who caught me and placed me ever-so-gently
at the bottom, but I know in my heart that that man pushed me.
Keaton and Gina moved out of that house shortly after but not because of
ghosts. They have no idea when went on that day in 1988.
*~*~*~*~*
The next big thing that sticks out in my mind was in the summer of 1990. My
brother had been born in February and I was not at all pleased. Having a
squalling newborn in the room next to you all night is not fun. But there were
plusses to being a big sister. I now had access to diapers and baby clothes
for my dolls and, when my little brother was napping, I was allowed to play
with his baby swing. Now, now-a-days, these swings are a cinch- you wind them
up with ease, push a button and they start going. Some even have little
computers with timers and all that. Well, ours had a rusty, hard to turn crank
and you had to pull it to start it.
I was five years old and not very tall so I had to use a little stool to reach
the crank. Well, one morning, I got up and decided my teddy bear was going to
get to swing. I grabbed my bear and went into the living room where the swing
was. I put my bear in it and went into the bathroom for my little stool.
I carried the stool back and put it under the crank but just as I was about to
step up onto it, the crank began to turn all by itself. As I said before, the
crank is not easy to turn but it wound up like it was nothing. Then, it began
to swing on its own. I wasn't scared, creeped out, or anything like that. I
just let my bear swing.
As this was happening, no one was in the house with me. Mom and Dad were in
the back yard and they had baby Harlan with them so no one could have turned
the crank for me.
*~*~*~*~*
Nothing much else happened when I was young- I had a fear of my closet and of
the dark like any red-blooded five year old- but nothing unusual except for a
certain doll that I still own, and my Barbie house.
I had a little doll- the Christmas doll they used to sell in JC Penney
catalogues- that stayed in a little doll buggy by my bed. She never scared me
but I remember watching her blinking at me when I would go to sleep at night.
And when I was little, I had a great, big Barbie house. It was huge- big
enough for all my doll furniture, and believe me I had a lot. I was the first
grandchild on either side of my family so I was lavished upon by my nine
grandmothers and five grandpas. Anyway, I just remember watching my dolls
move. Other times, I'd have my house fixed up just the way I liked it and then
the next morning, all the furniture would be strewed around the room.
*~*~*~*~*
In 1995, my great grandmother died and we moved into her house. She had lived
alone here and was plagued by spirits most of her time here. She was a
believer of God but something was still wrong- she wasn't handling her
situation correctly. Anyway, she was tormented night and day by spirits.
When we moved in, everything was hunky-dory until about five years ago.
I have her bedroom and some days, I'd walk in my room and it would just reek
of her perfume. It would gag me. I'd just walk out and come back later when
the smell had gone- it wasn't so bad. I wasn't scared. I began seeing black
and white flashes out of the corners of my eyes. I'd have horrible nightmares
about the corner of our living room and about demons who lived in the living
room window on the sill.
Two years passed. I was 12 and in the seventh grade and began to read up on
witchcraft and ghosts. The subject interested me and I thought just reading it
wouldn't hurt, though now I realize my error.
That's when the proverbial shit hit the proverbial fan. One day, I was laying
down in my closet. It was a sliding, double door closet and my cat, Precious,
had just had kittens inside it. So I was laying with my head in the closet in
front of the kittens, playing with them.
They were purring and nursing while Precious just sat there looking as proud
as could be, when it all went silent. I didn't think anything of it, just laid
there with the kittens, until -and I still get shivers thinking about this- I
heard an in-human, demonic voice say:
"Come With Me."
Well, I just kinda slowly stood up and then booked it for the living room. I
could hear Precious hissing behind me. And that is what really started
everything.
I began to see orbs floating around my room at night- they'd come from my
closet and chase each other around the room. I began to see ghosts.
The first one I saw was a shadow person. I was sleeping in the living room-
the last time I ever slept in there to be honest. I was asleep on the couch.
All of a sudden, for a reason unknown to me, I awoke to see a shadow man
stooped over me, reaching out for my chest or throat with his hands. I didn't
do anything for a second, then just sat up, stood up, and walked into my
bedroom. I tried to ignore what had just happened and for a while, I
succeeded. To this day I don't know if he was trying to molest me or choke me.
During the summer, my brother and I would wake up in the night and walk into
the living room to sit under the ceiling fan. That is where we met up with
another ghost. We were sitting there cooling off, when we both noticed a woman
walk up the front walk and open the screen door. We froze. The woman gently
knocked on the door five times.
Of course, Harlan and I were not about to go open the door and let her in. Who
knows what that might cause? So we waited. After a minute, she knocked four
times, a little louder. Then after a minute, three times, louder again. Then
two times. Then, when I guess it figured it wasn't getting in, it pounded once
on the door, it was so hard and so loud that the windows rattled. Harlan and I
ran into his room and stayed there till morning.
I began to see the shadow man again in my mirror. I began to see a little
girl's ghost who would sit on my floor and play with this doll. The little
girl was dressed in Victorian era clothing with a little china doll in her
lap. I never talked to her and she never talked with me.
I then began to see the ghost of a little boy that I nicknamed Joey. He was so
cute- brown mop of hair and big, brown teddy bear eyes. His skin was so pale.
He was in a little blue sleeper with feet in it and he carried around a
little, bloody teddy bear. Joey's cause of death was evident. He had a long
gash across his neck, blood was spilled down his sleeper. He didn't scare me.
He was so sullen and shy. He would come turn my TV off and on during the
night. Only once did he scare me and that was because I was half asleep and
immobile while he stood in my corner.
Soon, I met another child. She and I didn't have a very good relationship. One
night, I was sitting in my room watching TV, minding my own business. My mom
had just installed a little plastic door stop behind my doorknob because it
was making a hole in the wall. You could pull the plastic stop off if you
yanked hard enough but it was held on with some adhesive pad. Anyway, I was
sitting there watching TV when I heard this little 'pop' noise. I looked down
at my bedpost and there was the little plastic door stopper- ACROSS the room.
My room is about twelve by eight and my bed takes up about three feet in the
corner. That thing had fallen off before but never got more than three feet
from the door. No way could it have made it to my bed.
But I thought nothing of it and put it back on the wall, pushing as hard as I
could to get it on there well.
After a few more minutes though, as I sat on my bed, 'pop'. I looked down and
there was the stopper again by my bedpost. I just replaced it and sat back
down. Then, 'pop'. It came off again. I growled in irritation and put it back
on the wall. A few seconds later, it was back by my bed along with the sound
of a little girl's laughter.
I put it back on the wall and sat on my bed, trying to ignore the stopper. I
told myself that if it came off once again, I'd just leave it off. Well, this
time, I heard 'pop' and got smacked in the head with the little stopper. That
nearly made me loosen my bowels. I glared at my wall where the stopper
belonged. There was a little girl, laughing playfully at me. She faded out of
sight but her laugher was still heard.
"Okay, kid." I said, standing up, "If you don't leave this door stopper on the
wall where it belongs, I'm going to give you a whipping you won't soon
forget!" The laughter ceased. I put the stopper back on the wall and went to
bed. The next morning, it was still on so I guessed she had left. But no, the
next morning, the stopper was sitting mockingly on my nightstand. It hasn't
been on my wall since.
*~*~*~*~*
It was around this time that my brother began to sleep in the same room as me.
He was seeing things in his room- in fact, I've seen a crying bride in his
room- and he felt safer with me in there and visa versa. We'd wake up at night
to have a whole group of people standing over us. Then as soon as we woke up,
they'd disappear. I would feel people touching me- rubbing my back.
When I would take a shower, I'd feel people touch my back with icy hands.
Pockets of cold air would appear. I would smell my grandmother's perfume more
and more.
Our cat Smoky died and came back. He would sit in the window sill and hiss- we
never saw his face, just his grey tail. He was the only grey cat we had. More
recently, our cat Z died and we saw him the next day in the laundry room.
There's a man that walks up and down the sidewalk- not the knocker- and he
peaks in the window. I've had him smack my window when I was looking outside
and it left a hand print the next morning.
*~*~*~*~*
The most recent thing I've seen is a woman I mistook for my mother. One night
while I was brushing my teeth, I glanced in the mirror of the bathroom. In the
mirror, if you look right in front of the sink, you can see into the living
room. I glanced in the living room and watched for a second. All of a sudden,
a tall, blonde, naked, wet woman walked across the little gap in the mirror.
At first, I thought it was mom who'd taken a bath earlier.
I needed to talk to her so I watched in the mirror, never taking my eyes off
for a second, to see when she came out so I could speak with her. Well, I
watched and watched and watched but she never came. So after rinsing my brush,
I walked into the living room. It was dead silent. Even the clock didn't tick.
It was freezing cold too. Mom had not been in the living room.
I went down the hall and looked into her room. She was fast asleep in bed.
Ever since, I've seen shadow people in the living room- the other day, one ran
at me head on as I turned the corner into the room.
-Kayla.