I’ve lived in this house for close to eight years,
and for as long as I can remember there have been things
going on that no one could explain.
The house is sort of an old one, about 60 years or so, built by one of my ex-
boyfriend’s grandfather. I was eleven when my mother, my
older brother Dennis, and I moved in with Bob (my step-
father) and Bryan (my step-brother).
Bryan had a dog, whose name was Ariel. Sometimes
Ariel would sit in the living room facing the
door and barking. She would also do this in Bryan’s room and
also in the playroom. We never really paid much attention
to her behavior. Bob’s mother died in our living room, she
always loved dogs, so we always assumed it to be her spirit
playing with the dog. We even have a habit of calling her
Betty, thanking her when missing things show up, and
lecturing her when things mysteriously disappear.
One night, a few years ago in December, I had a few
friends over. Keri and I were in my room, talking. She
was also smoking out my window, making my room very cold.
I also had two other friends over, John and Ken. They were
out in my dining room playing on the computer. So when the
tapping started on my door, neither Keri nor I were
afraid. I called out “What?” and got no answer, the
tapping continued. This happened a lot when someone wanted
to be particularly annoying, as its never easy to walk
through my messy room to my door. So I got up from sitting
on my bed, wrapped in a blanket and asked “what do you want!?”
and yanked open my door expecting John to be standing
there. I was very surprised to find no one standing in my
doorway. So I closed my door, shrugged my shoulders at
Keri’s questioning look. “Its probably just the boys
knocking on my door and running around the corner when I
open up.”
We hadn't been sitting for more than a minute
before the tapping started again, I looked at Keri making a
sign to be quiet, and crept up to my door, and threw it
open. No one could have run away fast enough, yet there was
no one there. Then the next logical explanation came to
mind, and I told Keri to put out her cigarette and close
the window, thinking that maybe there was a draft causing
something to hit against my door. However once the window
was closed the tapping became louder, almost frantic. That
was too much for us, and we opened the door and ran into
the dining room where the boys were. We asked them if they
had been knocking on my door, or if they had heard any
tapping. They denied both.
We hadn't been out of my room long when a police
officer came to my front door. Of course I panicked, both
my parents were out, and I was very worried that something
had happened to them. When I answered the door and he
asked if my parents were home I felt better, knowing that
obviously if something had happened to them, he wouldn't be
asking for them. However, when he refused to tell me why
he was there, I began to worry again. I sent him to the
upstairs apartment where my older brother lives, as he was
the only adult home. As a worried posse, everyone went up
stairs after the cop left to ask what had happened. Dennis
gave me a very serious look and said “Ariel got hit by a
car, she’s dead.” At the time, the tapping was put out of
my mind by the very sad news of our dog dying. But looking
back on it a few months later it occurred to me, Betty had
been trying to warn us and maybe save Ariel.
Betty seems to have made friends with our new dog
though. Buca is now very much in the habit of hanging out
in the playroom when no one is around, and bringing her
ball the to living room, dropping it, barking and wagging
her tail like she’s expecting someone to play with her.
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