This story involves three separate instances that happened to my father and his mother. I firmly believe that they are connected.

When I was little and living with my grandmother (my father’s mother) I would get her to tell me stories about when she was little. One night I asked her to tell me a scary story that happened to her. After much begging she finally gave in and told me this story.

Growing up my grandmother lived out in a small community in the middle of nowhere with her mother, father, eight sisters and two brothers. The house she described as L shaped predated the 1860’s, if you know anything about old houses, the bedrooms were large and often times had more than one occupant. The bedroom my grandmother had 3 beds in it and it is in this room that the story begins.

It was late one night after they had come home from church when one of her sister screamed in the bedroom. She looked where her sister was looking and she watched someone move under her bed. She bravely looked under the bed to see who was in her room and soon found it was not who but what. She told me that was she saw under that bed was a black man. The man had no features like a shadow but at the same time it had a solid form like a person would have. They quickly ran to go get their father, but by the time they returned it was gone.

The story of the shadow man would be pushed into the back of my mind for a few years until my father told me two stories that stopped my heart.

When my father was a little boy his father died of cancer, one night just a few days before he died my father was sitting alone at home while the rest of his family was at the hospital. He had fallen asleep sitting in the window and woke up being very cold. He noticed some movement outside and sat up thinking it was his family coming home. It was not.
Walking slowly up to the house was the same figure as my father described was identical to my grandmother’s even though she had never told him the story.
As the thing got closer to the window my father shut his eyes tight and prayed for it to go away. When he opened them the thing was gone.

The thing did not reappear till over 10 years later.

My father was driving in his VW Bug around midnight in Montgomery. In fact he was driving in front of the cemetery where my grandfather was buried when all of a sudden the car died. Try as he might he could not get the car to start. The suddenly he felt this horrible feeling come over him. He looked in the review mirror and coming up the middle of the road was the black figure. He tried even harder to get the car to start. Then about the time the figure would have gotten to the car it disappeared and the car started.

That was the last time anyone has ever seen the black figure, but I feel that it will not be the last time. It is just a matter of time before my sister or I see it, and the black figure’s story includes another generation of my family.

Once the sun goes down I wonder if I will be the next to see it along with who or what is it and what dose it want.