We moved to our new home located in Texas when I was 10 years old. The house was a 3-story, 5 bedroom, 3 bath “mansion”. It was a big house, but nowhere near actual mansion size. At the time, I had never been in a bigger house than that, so you can understand why I was impressed. The first floor contained the kitchen and dining room, along with one bathroom, a laundry room, and the living space with hard-wood floors and the original fire place that was built with the house in 1912. The second floor had 3 bedrooms, a bathroom, and a balcony overlooking the front yard and dirt road leading up to the house. The third floor was highly unique. It contained 2 closet-sized bedrooms, a bathroom, and 2 small, “magical-looking” doors that led to the attic which wrapped around the entire 3rd floor, behind the walls.
Since I was one of the oldest of 7 kids, I was able to secure a 3rd floor bedroom before the others could call dibs. Unfortunately, since my oldest sister got her own room-the other 3rd floor bedroom, I was stuck sharing a room with the sister who was just above me in the pecking order. She was the second-born and I, the 3rd. She was only 2 years older than me, but you’d never know by the way she acted. She was way too cool and sophisticated to be friends with me and we butted heads almost constantly.
Despite having to share a room with- let’s call her Haggatha- living in this new adventure house was exciting. We had 10 whole acres to explore behind the house, full of wildlife and trees to climb. The best part, according to my parents, was how private it was. Neighbors could scarcely be seen through thick brush and trees surrounding the property, creating a barrier along our barbed-wire-strung fence.
The house, itself, had an incredible history to it. As you may have guessed from the title, it was built as a hotel back in “cowboy days” and it was conveniently placed about a hundred yards off the railroad tracks. The railroad was a main source of transportation back then and our town was a hot-spot for weary travelers, looking to rest and re-supply. By the time we moved in, the house had been remodeled a bit and the railway was used, strictly, for freight transport rather than human travel. From what I’ve gathered, the 3rd floor was reserved for the servants who worked the hotel and at some point, the hotel became more of a… well, it was brothel. Incredible history, huh?
We had moved from the mountains of West Virginia and I grew up hearing stories of the Mothman and other urban legends of the area. I had always had an interest in spooky things, but it wasn’t until we moved that I was able to get my hands on scary movies and horror books. I remember sneaking into the closet under the stairs where we stored all of our random junk and Christmas decor that included a TV/DVD combo set that I’d watch all the scary movies I could scavenge from my oldest sister’s stash. Movies like “It”, the “Chucky” series, “Saw”, and “Darkness Falls”. That’s why it didn’t come as a shock when I started having nightmares.
The nightmares started off with random, not-so-threatening things like being locked out of the house at night in the pitch black or running from some unknown source and realizing I’m actually not moving at all. They were all relatively tame and I chalked it up to too much scary exposure, but I wasn’t worried… until they shifted. The dreams started becoming darker, more realistic and eventually introduced someone who I came to know as the shadow girl. The first time I remember seeing her, she was nothing but a shadow, something dark in the corner of my eye or someone turning a corner down the hallway who I couldn’t quite make out before they rounded it. At first, I didn’t even know it was a she. That changed when she started becoming more clear and less evasive. No matter how clear she got though, she always managed to keep her face hidden. I assumed this was due to my absolute horrific fear of Samara in “The Ring”.
My sister, Haggatha, knew about my interest in the creepy and often used it as a teasing tool against me. When my nightmares starting waking me up at night and in turn, waking her, she began losing her already-short-temper. I remember one night in particular, I was adamant that the shadow girl was not just in my dreams, but really in the house with us. My sister completely wrote me off and got so mad at me for waking her, that she pushed me out into the hallway and locked the door… And that was the night I found out I was right.