Here Kitty, Kitty

Isuppose we all get a chance to run into the unexplained in our lifetimes. A few are lucky enough to recognize such events when they occur. I have had the pleasure of 'feeling' unusual presences for as long as I can remember. However, until I got to my last year in college I was always alone when I sensed something extraordinary and able to doubt my perceptions.

My roommate and I had decided to rent an apartment that year. It was, essentially, the main floor of an old house. Our housemates above us had the top floor and attic, and, below us, a two-bedroom basement. We were certainly aware of the age of this house, being in a river town famous for liquor runs by Al Capone up to Chicago during Prohibition. Until we had been living in our apartment for about a month, however, we actually believed we were the only occupants.

It began innocently enough for me the first month we were there. I was reading a book (Yes, probably Stephen King or something) when my cat sat on the corner of my bed and seemed to be staring inexplicably at the far right corner of my room. Occasionally, he seemed to follow and play with something in mid-air. He would get up on his haunches as if something dangled in front of him and bat at it with one paw. I got down next to him to see if there was a tiny gnat flying around, but, alas, I saw nothing. These episodes continued until we moved a year later. He has never acted like that again. But that was only the beginning of strange happenings.

The noises started next.

My roommate and I were up very late one night watching television when we heard a loud CRASH! in the kitchen behind us. Shocked out of our quiet mode, she and I brushed it off as my cat getting under the counter into the cabinet where we kept our pots and pans. Suddenly, her eyes got wide as she pointed to my bedroom. The cat was sound asleep on my bed. But what had caused the noise? We were plagued by this question the entire year we lived there as noises were heard everywhere and only some could be chalked up to the settling of an old house.

After the noises began, a couple days later, we noticed strange shadows and cold spots throughout the apartment. A cold spot lingered constantly near the left corner of the foot of my roommate's bed. To reach the bathroom, you had to go through her room, and, inexplicably and subconsciously, everyone we observed walking to the bathroom went around the same spot.

I once sat down on this spot and felt the most all-encompassing sadness I have ever felt. I cried without realizing it. The presence I felt was lonely and angry. But I don't think this was the only presence. A few of our friends reported being uneasy in our apartment at night. Most said that they particularly felt uncomfortable in the bathroom. A few of us thought we saw an apparition of some sort standing in the tub, facing us. A couple times I saw a grey man standing behind me as I turned on the light and looked in the mirror. I never did see this spirit's exact features, just as if you could look at a shadow 3D, but I am sure this presence was more angry than the one in the tub and may have been the spirit to be frustrated enough to knock over our dishes.

I once took a couple of pictures around the house after the temperature lowered rather quickly in the livingroom. Although all of the lights were on, the exposed film showed pictures that were grainy, very dim and hard to make out. All of the rest of the pictures on the roll came out fine. Weird, but no images appeared to point to the paranormal, so I put them away somewhere.

We never did find out a whole lot about the energy that surrounded our place. Outside of casual references to being 'creeped out' our housemates didn't mention anything unusual in their apartments, but you got the feeling that strange things did, in fact occur, throughout the house.