House of Terror

Last August I turned 20 and as a present my girlfriend decided to take me on a week long holiday into the country to a quaint little cabin in the middle of a small wooded area in Norfolk.

I spent my actual birthday, August 2nd with my family and Helen and then on the 3rd we set off. It only took about two hours on the train to Kings Lynn then a cab ride to where we were staying.

The woods would kind of remind you of the woods in Blair Witch, except being August there was still plenty of foliage. It was only about a half an our walk to where we were staying, there wasn't a path as such, more like a well walked shallow trench.

We arrived at the cabin at about noon and got to emptying our packs and bags, then we toured around the house. It was actually a bit too comfortable to be called quaint! Downstairs was dominated by an expansive living room, comfy sofa, recliners, even a fairly large TV and a DVD player (we knew in advance to bring some DVD movies to watch as the reception was bad due to all the trees.) The kitchen had an electric cooker, fridge and washer/dryer. I breathed a sigh of relief, I liked going back to basics but dreaded the idea of starting a fire to cook with, I'm a Wiccan so don't like the idea of cutting down trees, even if it would have been one or two. Also downstairs was a toilet.

There was a staircase at the front of the house, up stairs were three bedrooms, two were barely bigger then closets and the third was enormous! A king-size bed, wardrobes and mirrors lined the walls. There was also a big bathroom with a bathtub and separate shower, another toilet and a "changing area" which was really a corner of the room with one of those standing screens blocking the view.

After we had looked around we decided to make some food as we both were famished after the journey. We made some spaghetti and "meat" balls (Helen is a Vegan so it was really Quorn balls) We talked about how we were going to spend the week, our plans mainly included watching movies, sleeping late and unlimited amounts of snuggling! After eating we decided to check out the TV, first of all though opening all the windows as it was getting stuffy.

The breeze was lovely, I guess it was cooler because of all the shade the trees gave. We flicked through the TV channels but as we had been warned, the reception sucked! So we decided to watch a DVD, I had bought along some comedies, Phoenix Nights went on as it's my favorite show. We had only watched about five minutes before we heard a blood-curdling scream. We froze, it came from everywhere, from upstairs, but also outside and from in the living room too. I ran outside to check and Helen ran upstairs to search the rooms. I called out at the top of my lungs if there was anybody there and if they needed help for about ten minutes before my voice started to crack but nothing. Not a single returned call. We both returned to the living room looking mystified.

After agreeing that we had both heard a woman screaming we talked about the possibilities, if there was no woman then all it could have been was a ghost. I was willing to believe that, but Helen, who is a sceptic, decided it must have been a bird, a fox or some other animal screeching having a fight or something. I decided to go along with her story as she never believes, even though I live in a haunted house (different story, different time!) She still passes it off as normal everyday experiences, she doesn't even believe in Magick! So we got back to watching the DVD and everything went OK until bed time.

We didn't go to bed until about 2am as I am an Insomniac and Helen is used to working the night shift at the hospital, she is a Midwife, so we are both used to late nights. We lay in bed with just a lamp on talking for a while, about how nice it was here and how nice it was to get an entire week alone, usually we can barely have a meal together without something coming up. I rang my family to let them know how we were, and I texted a few friends on my mobile to say hi and then we decided to go to sleep. We had a fan running as it was very hot, and just a top sheet covering us. All that could be heard was the fan and the occasional owl hoot. We both fell asleep pretty quickly, tired from the early morning we had had and all the excitement of being here.

I however woke up with a start a while later. I don't know what woke me, but I woke like someone had just called my name, with an unexpected jump. I looked over at the clock and saw that it was about 3:30, it was still dark and I was freezing. I lay wondering why I had woken when I heard a wheezy laughter coming from the bedroom doorway. I tried to see if there was anything there, squinting through the darkness but saw nothing. Hardly surprising since I didn't have my glasses on, anything further then a foot in front of my face becomes a blur! I reached out and flicked on the lamp and saw a brief shadow flitting from the door but then nothing, just an empty doorway. Helen stirred next to me, sleepily mumbling the question of why I had the light on. I shook her fully awake and told her what had happened. She didn't believe me. She didn't think I was lying, just that because I was sleepy I had imagined the laugh and that the shadow was my eyes playing tricks. I agreed, kissed her and turned the light out to go back to sleep. Helen hugged me nearer to her and I must say I felt reassured now her arms were around me. I wasn't exactly scared, like I said I live in a haunted house, but I know my ghosts and know they wouldn't hurt me, if anything they protect me, but this spirit I didn't know so I would have to keep my guard up. I soon heard Helen softly snoring next to me and before long I joined her.

We woke at about 11:30am and lay in bed enjoying the peaceful quiet that surrounded the house. The nighttime laughter as I called him still bugged me, but I decided to get over it, if he didn't hurt me then I wouldn't hurt him.

We set about making breakfast, some vegan yogurt and some fruit. We talked about nothing in particular as we ate, laughing and joking in our usual manner. Since today (the 4th) was extremely hot I decided to have a cold shower before we did anything else. Helen decided to have a hot bath, leaving me protesting that it was way too hot to soak in anything but ice water! I showered and changed into shorts and a t-shirt and while Helen had her bath I read to her, we were in the middle of reading the Harry Potter books, we are both addicted! We take turns in reading chapters to each other, that way we can read the same book at the same time. I had only gotten a few pages into the 10th chapter of the 3rd book when all of a sudden there was a loud knocking on the door, real thumping knocks. I went down to the answer the door wondering who it could be. I didn't think anyone else was around here and hoping nothing had happened to our families. I opened the door and there was no one. I called hello but got no reply. I decided to walk around the house but found no one. When I came back inside Helen was dressed in shorts and a shirt and asked what had happened and I told her that no one was there. She again shrugged the incident off though did have a nervous look in her eyes. I knew fully well what was happening, we were stuck in the middle of the woods with one if not more ghosts. I wasn't mad at Helen for not believing, I knew that in time if she had proof she would believe. I also knew that if we stayed the week that she would probably have that proof dancing right in front of her.

The day went without further ghostly interference until dinnertime. We spent the day hiking through the woods, it was wonderful to be out of the city and surrounded by nature. We were cooking, had put potatoes and nut roast in the oven and were just watching a bit of Jeepers Creepers when something from the kitchen caught our eyes. I should explain that the kitchen is joined to the living room by a very attractive archway. Through the arch we both saw a glass... well Floating! It moved from the right side of the room and hovered for a moment before crashing to the floor. That was not the worse of it sadly. As soon as the glass broke a booming echoing deep demonic voice bellowed at us "GET OUT" Then the bloodcurdling woman's scream happened again. Needless to say we obliged.

We sat on a fallen log about 20 feet from the house. I turned to Helen and simply said "So, what do you think just happened?" She just looked at me and I saw terror in her eyes. After a minute or so she said "Maybe we should do something, like you do something. You're good with this ghost stuff, isn't there a cleansing you could do?" Well of course there was, I never go anywhere without a spell book and the basic herbs, including sea salt, sage and rosemary, all excellent for banishing and cleansing. We decided to go back inside about 10 minutes later. Helen holding my hand in a vice grip, she is two years older then me, but obviously she had never had experiences like this before and was more then terrified.

I left her in the kitchen, she said she was OK now and would take care of the food, it was almost done. I went upstairs and got my herbs and salt and found the words in my spell book that I needed to get rid of this apparent evil. I gathered my things and went downstairs. Helen and I ate in silence, I decided it was best to get my strength up before starting the banishing. I started at the top of the house, working my way through the rooms, sprinkling my mixture and chanting as I went. Working my way to the front door, building up as much energy as I could I yelled out "Begone from this place, unworthy energy. So Mote It Be" Things actually felt cleaner in the house. The sun shone through the trees a little brighter and everything seemed OK for the rest of the day. Sadly things would get a lot worse during the night. So bad that it would drive us from the house in terror.

We had decided after the days activity to leave in the morning so after dinner we packed up all our things and set them at the foot of the bed. We got into bed somewhat reluctantly. We just sat reading for a while, there was a huge storm building outside, we could hear distant thunder and knew it would start pouring down soon. We read for a couple of hours, each taking turns to read aloud. At about 1:30 the heavens opened. Rain lashed down outside and thunder boomed so loud it made our ears ring. We always thought there was something very romantic about thunder storms, I don't know why. So I think as a way to release some of the tension we started making out. After about 20 minutes the lamp that we had on flickered out as a huge peal of thunder rolled around us. We froze, scared of being in the dark in the haunted house. Helen flicked the other lamps switch but it didn't work. The power was out. Of course any self-respecting Witch always has candles to hand! So I lit a few around the room and we felt slightly better with at least partial light. We had made sure we had closed and locked all the windows as we planned to leave first thing, but despite that a huge gust of freezing wind blew through the room snuffing out all our candles. My breath caught in my chest as I felt the cold settle in the room. If I had been able to see I knew I would see my breath in front of me. I was covered in goosebumps and could feel Helen shivering in my arms. Lightening crashed all of a sudden and in the momentary flash of light we saw splatters of blood on a normally white wall. Five seconds and another flash and there in the doorway was the shadow. We heard his evil wheezy laugh. We slowly became aware of two spots of glowing red. His eyes, shaking slightly as he laughed his smokers laugh. Filling the room with evil. We heard his footsteps slowly crossing the room. I whispered to Helen to concentrate in a glowing white light surrounding us both, shielding us from his evil. I did the same. Just as his laughter stopped another flash of lightening and I saw him open his mouth wide, and saw too many razor-sharp teeth fitted in it. I conjured our white light and yelled at him "Leave us unclean demon, you are forbidden to harm us, we are protected by the white light that burns your evil from this place!" The lights came back on, we grabbed our boots and bags, I grabbed my phone and we ran out of there, in just our pyjamas, like something was chasing us. And the laughter was, just as we cleared the threshold of the house the voice shouted "Better run, I'll eat your souls if you return." Needless to say we ran until we were out of that forest.

I phoned a cab from my mobile (unlike the movies I did have both battery power and signal!) and we were on our way to a hotel where we phoned everyone, not that it was appreciated at 4am! We slept fitfully that night, and for about a month after, my Insomnia had worsened by a few notches, but we are back to normal now, and I can firmly say the Helen believes! Don't think We'll be going on holiday this year!