The Man In The Doorway

I grew up in a house in a small town named Casa Grande, Arizona. The house was an older home, I estimate it was built in the 1960s or so.

When I was about 10 or 11, I was sleeping in my twin sized bed with my bedroom door open. I used to feel trapped with the door closed when I was little and never had it closed. My bed was positioned on the opposite wall across from the door. In the middle of the night I woke up and rolled over from my right side, to my left side, in the process waking my little dog, Buster. When I looked towards the door, I noticed a man standing in the doorway. At this time, my parents were separated and my father was not living with us any longer. I noticed that this mans face was in shadow, as well as his feet, but the rest of his body were solid. He was wearing a striped t-shirt and dark pants. He was not see through in any way.

As I watched him, I noticed that he appeared to be looking from my doorway to the other doorway across the hall from mine too. My mind started telling me, "you have to be dreaming", "it's a dream, it can't be real", so I rolled on my back and pulled the blankets over my head and kept telling myself that it wasn't real. I finally got the nerve to pull the covers down past my eyes and take a peek at the door. I now saw the man standing slightly IN my room, but still in the doorway. I quickly yanked the covers back over my face, and rolled back onto my right side, facing the doorway so that I could easily peek again, plus, there was NO WAY I was going to turn my back on this guy. I braved yet another peek out of the covers, only to see with terror that he was in the middle of my room, standing completely still, each time I peeked he was motionless, he did all his moving when I wasn't looking, like a cat stalking its prey.

By this time, I was freaking out, thinking of ways to get out of my room, but too scared to move, to even call out for my mom. I looked one last time, and this time, I saw the man kneeling beside my bed, first his torso, then the shoulders as he kneeled, and then where his face should have been, I saw black. Nothing. I didn't see a face, but I didn't see through him either. I shot up out of bed like lightning and bolted for the light switch by the door, flipped the light on, whirled around to, but there was nothing. He had vanished. For weeks after this I was unable to sleep in my room. After I was able to sleep in my room again, I had to sleep with my door closed, there was no way I wanted to see him in the doorway again.