Alfred

I was living in a hostel in 1999 due to family problems, I had just turned 18 and had been living in the hostel for a few weeks. Before I begin to tell you my story I will give you a quick "tour" of the hostel.

Its a modern bungalow with 5 bedrooms, the front door was security locked with buzzers in each room to let people in, intercom system just to make the girls safer and help us to feel safer too as it was a woman's refuge. As you go in through the front door my bedroom is on the left, Helen's room on the right (not real names for obvious reasons) Ann's room directly opposite, up the hallway with the bathroom on the left and the kitchen down a small passage with the living room connected to that.

There was just us three girls in the refuge at that point in time even though it is a 5 bedroom Hostel with the extra two rooms attached to the side of the bungalow connected by yet another security door.

I had been living in the refuge for a few weeks and was settled in and glad to be away from home. I was lying in bed in the small hours of the morning just staring into space when my "day dream" was broken by the sound of footsteps in the hall, way distant sounding to start with, then they got louder and closer towards my door. Thinking it was Helen arriving home late, I ignored it, reminding myself to ask her not to stomp around so late at night. So the next morning I see her outside her door and we start having general chit chat about nothing in particular when she asked me how come I was so late home and what was I wearing on my feet to make me walk so loud? I looked at her in surprise and told her I was going to ask her the same thing.

The footsteps continued once or twice a week and I just coped with hearing them.

A few months later I was in the lounge watching TV when I had the worst feeling in my stomach, a mix of dread and fear. It was the weirdest thing I have ever felt, I got up, went to my room to get my cigarettes and I must have gotten half way back to the lounge with my pack of cigarettes in hand, when I felt the fear and dread 100 times worse. I ran out of the house, terrified, and I sat outside on the kerb in the cold October night, no shoes on my feet, terrified of the house. I spent at least 15 minutes trying to pluck up the courage to look towards the house with the feeling I was being watched. I turned and it felt like someone or something was staring right back at me, and I know that there was no one home.

After about 2 hours Helen and Ann came home and asked me what I was doing sitting outside in the dark, without shoes or a coat on. I explained to them the feelings I experienced and Helen went pale and said "oh, thats Alfred". "Alfred?" I asked her, and she told me that she had been feeling the same as me but had locked herself in her room, lights on under the duvet. She had been there for about 20 mins and the intercom for her room was buzzing, she ignored it and 5 mins later it buzzed again, she got up to answer it, she picked up the handset to say hello and there was nobody there. She even looked out the window to see if the person was still there, and there wasn't a sign of anybody. From the front door there is nowhere to hide for anybody wanting to play pranks. She said she ran out of the house as fast as her legs could carry her and into the town centre where she drank coffee till she was sure that one of the other girls would be home.

I wish I knew the history of the house and who "Alfred" really was.

I left the bungalow in the December of the same year, after hearing more footsteps and luckily no more dread, I went home after things got better there for me.

It doesn't look scary reading it, but it was pure terror what I felt that one night.

Thank you for reading.