I’ve always been a little… off, I’ve heard. I’ve seen things that I shouldn’t have, I’ve know things about people that I shouldn’t have known about, and I’ve run into more than my fair share of odd experiences that I could only describe as paranormal, but this one has chilled me to the bone ever since.
I suppose I should give a bit of introduction to me and my life. My name is Mark, and I grew up without a father. As such, I lived with my mother and her parents. My mother was 20 when she had me, and we lived with my grandparents for a grand total of 5 years before we moved out, but I would still spend a whole lot of time at my grandmother’s house. In those years, I have a few sights that scared me beyond belief, but one that has stuck with me all these years later.
I woke up early in the morning, I was hungry and was going to get a peanut butter bagel, a staple breakfast for 7-year-old Mark. I opened the door to my room, stepped into the hallway, and, for some unknown reason, glanced down the hallway to my grandparents’ room.
The door was wide open, and the room was black. A figure was standing in the doorway, staring right at me. It (he) was tall, almost up to the doorway, darker than the dark of night. I could see no eyes, but it stared at me with incredible malice. I scampered away, but felt the eyes every time I walked that hallway for years.
Fast forward to my mid-teens. My father came back from military service, he married my stepmother, and they bought a house in a well-to-do neighborhood. The house was excellent, but all of us would see shapes outside. Figures, walking around the house, waiting near the doors until we shine lights on them. Later that year we found a box in the attic, with discarded wedding clothing. We burned these, and almost all the figures disappeared.
Almost, but not all. There was one still, one that follows me to this day.
The day we burned the box, I had a very vivid dream. Dreams are weird, and this one was no different. In the dream, I was working at the local fair. I was working all day, and then happened across a completely empty field. At the opposite end of the field I saw one of the figures, almost the same as the one from my childhood. It was at least 7 feet tall, fully black except for its eyes and mouth. Those were blindingly white, eyes as large as tennis balls and a smile as ridiculous to match. Think “Jeff the Killer” but his smile is stretched wider. It charged at me, unusually long limbs swinging wildly in its pursuit, and the whole time it kept that fucking expression on its face. It caught me, but I woke up before it took me.
That was the winter of 2009. It’s been 13 years now and that creature, which I know as only BlackJack, has been with me every day since. Since then, I have moved to a different country, married the love of my life, and landed myself a successful job as an IT professional. But no matter how many houses we move to, how much distance I put between myself and that burnt box, BlackJack keeps coming back.
He isn’t just a figment of my imagination, as many times as I’ve been told. I’ve had experiences.
I’ve been followed home by him. He has appeared at my doors, banging to try and get in. I woke up one night and he was standing over my spouse, staring at me with that familiar yet absolutely terrifying face. The door was wide open, a hole where the handle was. I have kept a light on every night since that, and it’s been months.
Yesterday my spouse left for work. I haven’t seen or heard from him since. That night I heard banging on all the windows, shortly after the lights went out.
I am sitting in my closet, surrounded by a total of 23 candles. I have zero matches left, and I can hear BlackJack tearing through my home. He may find me soon. There may be no hope.