Ten Years

Ihave been living in this house for over ten years now. Odd occurrences over the years have led me to believe that something is going on in this house.

In the beginning, things my sons would tell me didn't seem real so I basically ignored the tall tales. I wish now I had taken their concerns more seriously. However, I must point out that while these incidences were indeed odd, even startling, I don't believe that whatever 'it' is is malignant.

My oldest son tried to tell me early on that he had heard voices. Well, to be more specific, one night he thought he heard his dad and I having...ummm...well, you know. I told him that was impossible since I had been too ill the previous night to be doing anything with his dad. But he insisted he heard a male and a female having a great time. This becomes important later.

A few years later, one of the more frightening events happened. Sometimes I have trouble falling asleep in my own room, so I will go to our daybed which was located in the great room against the wall next to my oldest son's room. On one of those occasions, I had just pulled the covers over me but had not laid down yet when I saw in the dark what I thought was my son walking out of his bedroom. It was just a silhouette, though. It was the same height and build of my son. Naturally, I thought it was him. It walked right past me into the kitchen. My head turned so that I could watch it with my eyes. Thinking he was going to get a glass of milk or something, I called out to him. To my surprise he answered me, from his room! Confused because I could swear I just saw him walking out of that room, I asked him what he was doing. His reply chilled me to the bone. He said (and I quote verbatim), "I'm following it!" Yeah, that'll get me to sleep real quick, NOT!!

Once in a great while, I'll see something dart out of the corner of my eye. Unfortunately, that seems to occur more often when I am in the shower. I really wish it wouldn't do that when I am sopping wet, although it does tend to save us on water because my showers don't usually last long when that happens. But, not long ago, as I was showering, I heard two distinct bangs from the linen closet next to the shower stall. Something had opened the cabinet door and slammed it shut hard twice-but no one was in the room at the time. And you guessed it-it didn't take long for me to finish my shower.

Remember the voices that my sons heard but I did not? That changed about two years ago.
My husband, who was a skeptic all these years until (well, you'll find out soon), was out of town. My oldest son was also out of the house as he had joined the Navy. That left my younger son and myself alone in the house. I had made sure the TV and lights were turned off and doors locked as I went to bed. I was just starting to doze off, not yet asleep but not fully awake either. In that semi-conc ious zone, something wasn't quite right. Whatever it was, it made me wake fully. I knew something was wrong but couldn't quite put my finger on what that was. Then, I heard it and sat straight up, listening intently. A deep male's voice wafted into my room (I keep my bedroom door open at night) from the great room. I couldn't make out what was being said but it was definitely a voice.
The next day, I asked my son if anything unusual happened the night before. He said, "Oh, you mean the voice?" Ok. He's got my full attention now! "Yeah, a voice. What did it sound like?" "A man's voice." And he says all this in a calm manner. "Have you heard this voice before?" "Yeah," he says. "All the time." ALL the time??? That's news to me! I then called his brother on his cell phone and asked if he had heard any voices. He said, "Mom! Don't you remember? The spectral 'orgy'? I told you that years ago!", an obvious reference to the beginning of this story. He also confirmed that he had heard voices many times in this house. Of course, telling my husband any of this usually elicited groans and rolling of his eyes. That is until last fall.

He was sitting at his computer. We had converted one of the extra bedrooms (since oldest son is gone) into our computer room. His desk sits next to the door. So, there he was, playing on his computer when all of a sudden, he sees the open door close on its own, then re-open all by itself. He decided that was a good time to turn off his computer and go watch football. Skeptic no more!

A few weeks ago, my youngest son had to use the 'facilities'. In other words, he had to go to the bathroom. The mirror in his bathroom is hung on a chain and not fixed to the wall. He begins relieving himself when he saw the mirror pull out from the wall as if an unseen hand had grabbed the bottom of it and lifted it. I am baffled as to why this manifestation seems to like the bathrooms. Needless to say, my son hurried to finish and get out of there.

I learned of another, very frightening incident that happened, not in this house, but in my parents' house.
Twenty years ago, I had gone home with my then infant son (oldest son). On Christmas night, we had both fallen asleep. I remember having a particularly bad nightmare that night and woke up in a start. Moments later, I heard what sounded like a wild boar grunting in my ear. I started to turn my head to see what was making the sound. Suddenly, whatever it was physically tried to push me off the bed. My body went stiff and I couldn't do anything, I couldn't even talk. Yes, I know this sounds like sleep paralysis, and for many years, I believed that incident was in fact sleep paralysis. Not any more! Fast forward 19 years later. In October of 2005, my youngest son and I returned to my parents' house (first time in over a decade I had been home). Both my parents were dying of severe illnesses. That was brutal enough. We ended up staying a month and were the last to leave the house.
Shortly after returning to our home in South Carolina, my son tells me this: the night before we left, he heard what he described as a wild boar grunting in his ear. He had never heard my similar story of nearly two decades before. How could he have the same experience I had without even knowing about my prior experience? When he told me this, the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.

Whatever is in this house I believe to be benign, perhaps residual. Whatever is in my parents' house I believe to be very malignant.
I think I'll stay in this house.