First Night At Grandma's

During the summer of 1994 was the summer I turned ten and my little brother Matthew turned eight. I was comming upon the age, in my parents eyes, where I may be able to care for myself and my brother throughout our parent's work day without requiring day care.

When our usual day care provider put in her notice that she would be taking her two weeks off in the comming month of July, my parents decided, after a long evening conversation, that they just weren't ready to let us alone in our home for two weeks and so we were told that we would spend one of the two weeks with our father's parents and the other with our widowed grandmother.

Though I tried to buck their judgement, it did no good. "Maybe next summer you'll will be ready to care for Matt and yourself without adult supervision," they told me with sympathetic eyes.

The first week with our father's parents went fairly well. I found plenty to do on their farm tucked back in the hills and treed acres of central Minnesota. When that week ended our mother came to take us to her mother's home not far away. Being apprehensive by nature, I was rather scared to stay with our grandmother.

She was a wonderful women, full of love and kindness. She loved us wholeheartedly and she did her best to make sure we would have a good time at her home for the next week. Her home was enormous and old, over a hundred years had passed since its initial foundation had been laid and a lot of history had taken place there throughout its duration. It was tucked back on a country road in the outskirts of another central Minnesota town.

She and our grandpa who had passed years before, had hundreds of acres loaded with mature pine trees, which always made the location on which Grandma's house was positioned pretty creepy.

The first evening went well. She served a nice dinner of fried chicken and mashed potatoes and we all took part in doing the dishes together. Both Matt and I stayed close to her side when she would walk through the house. It was very dark and the numerous picture of family passed gave us both a chill. It seemed their eyes were looking right through us behind their framed glass enclosures.

When the time came for bed our grandma gave us her room on the second level. It was located at the end of a long creaky hall. She would sleep in one of her children's old rooms.

Matt and I fell asleep that first night with no trouble. We both snuggled our bodies close to each other and fell asleep as we would have in our own home.

I awoke in the middle of the night with the ever common bladder spasms, I needed to "go." Grandma had left the bathroom light on, which was located directly to the left of her bedroom door. As I made my way off her high bed and onto the floor, a strange, but not new feeling came over my legs. I was instantly scared. Without knowing why my body had become aware that there was something to fear. I went to the bathroom. As I sat on the toilet, legs not quite touching the floor, I began to drift off into a daze. I was tired. I was quickly removed from my endazment by the faint sound of a laugh. My head quickly became erect and I found myself staring down the endlessly long hall way. There he was. An older man peering at me around the ninety degree corner that ended that section of the hallway. He was dressed in brown slacks, a white short- sleeved dress shirt and suspenders holding his pants up. On his head he was wearing glasses in the shape of perfect circles and a party hat with a visible strap holding it on under his chin. I was petrified. I had seen wierd things before, ghosts. He was a ghost. I could see, the wall- hanging that would have been behind him had he been of flesh and blood, right through his chest. He was not a real man.

He urged me to come toward him, speaking in a faint voice that I couldn't understand. My skin became hard with goose pimples and I ran as fast as I could into the bedroom. I grabbed onto my brother with all my might, but he didn't stir. I soon passed out from utter fear.

I never saw him again that night. He didn't come and get me. He didn't taunt me again until later on in life when he decided to show himself, but that's another story.

Whatever he was and whatever it was that he wanted I still don't know. He wasn't trying to save me from anything. The house hadn't burned down in the night, my grandmother had not had an intruder. I don't know what his purpose was, maybe just being playful, maybe not.

If I ever meet up with him again, I assure you all, I will not follow him to where he tries to lead me. Child or adult I will always react the same, get the hell in the bed as fast as possible and hope to God I pass out from fear!