By the time I was 8, I had started school and become “the weird kid” to most. Sure, I had some friends, but they mostly just tolerated my strangeness. I was considered strange for many reasons. I hated sports and loved nerdy things, I was more into playing piano or guitar than cars/trucks, I was socially awkward, and I didn’t like field trips. Honestly, all those things are fairly understandable reasons as to why one would be singled out for being the weird kid. But there was one other reason I was considered weird. The first time someone asked if we could have a sleepover at my house, without thinking, I responded “SURE! Let’s do it! But just so you know, my house is haunted!”
Of course, by the end of the school day, my entire class knew me as “the scaredy cat” and thought I was absolutely crazy. Living in a small town like we did, word had spread to my parents and grandparents by the end of the following day. I was humiliated, not just because of my classmates, but now my dad and his parents are wondering if I should be taken away from my mom because she’d traumatized me. Sure, the things she subjected me to were traumatizing, but not in the way they thought or even in a way that would reveal itself until way later in life. Plus, my dad was just as traumatizing to me as she was.
To be honest, I didn’t find the “haunting” stuff traumatizing at all! In fact, I was quite intrigued by the paranormal at that age. In my time living at the house on 8th street, I hadn’t experienced anything as intense as the “staircase incident”. The idea of the house being haunted was more of just that, an idea. It had been so long since I’d experienced anything substantial that I’d begun to wonder if the house was even haunted.
Every now and then, usually late at night, you’d hear a door close on its own, or a small creek in the floor would jolt you out of falling asleep, maybe even a couple of short notes on the piano would play on their own. But it was infrequent. And, anytime I tried to bring it up to my mom (or her many friends who seemed to come and go) I was completely shut down. Mom would even try to play it off as if I was being over-dramatic and deny anything paranormal even happened. Honestly, thinking back on it, that was probably more traumatic to me than most of what happened in that house anyway.
Mom had many friends, and because she didn’t have a mortgage to pay, she would sometimes let her friends rent out one of the bedrooms and we would live off of the income that would bring in. This lack of responsibility allowed for some interesting things to play out. For example: No bedtime. I was just as much of my mom’s friend as any of her other friends and we would stay up and/or out until the sun came up if we wanted. I can remember all of us waiting until midnight, shutting off all the lights in the house, and moms’ friends would hide throughout the house and have me find them! Other times, we’d sit out on the balcony, and I’d convince one of her friends to tell me ghost stories late into the night.
I honestly enjoyed having most of them around, and occasionally, I’d catch them telling my mom or one another about something that happened to them in the house. It always made me curious as to why things weren’t happening around me and why I couldn’t experience it and learn more about what was happening.
One thing I didn’t like though, was that my mom always seemed to have a boyfriend. Keep in mind, I didn’t care that my mom had a boyfriend, I really cared that the guys my mom brought around were monumental douche bags that always got my mom into other bad habits. Another thing I hated about it was that if mom had a boyfriend, I couldn’t sleep in her bed with her. See, mom, being the gold-star-parent she was, had a knack for just leaving me places without saying anything. Because of that, I had INSANE separation anxiety and I slept in my moms’ bed any time I stayed at her house.
There was one guy who was Kind of alright, Dane. I wasn’t thrilled with him, but he was nice and understanding. Mom was with him for about a year before things started to get rocky. Once they started getting rocky, things started to happen in the house.
The usual creeks and piano noises started to pick up a bit, and they started happening during the day, our cats started staring off into random doorways (especially upstairs), the balcony room became unbearable to be in, and I started feeling things in the house I’d never felt before.
One early evening, near the end of Dane and Moms relationship, they had left me at home to go to a friend’s house for a bit. I was okay with it; I’d just gotten a Nintendo64 and was adequately distracted from anything going on. We’d set up the TV at the front of the big living room so everyone could see and I was sitting in the middle of the floor, glued to Castlevania64.
An hour had gone by and I was wrapped into my game when I heard mom say “Oh, Hey!”, as if greeting an unexpected guest from the living room behind me. It wasn’t an odd occurrence for friends to stop by the house and just walk in the back door, so I didn’t think anything of it. But then it hit me, the back door didn’t open or close and, worst of all, MOMS NOT HOME!
My heart sank. I reached up and shut off the console in front of me, then turned off the TV with the remote. I sat in total silence, staring at the curved, black, CRT tv screen, hoping to catch a reflection of what was behind me or at least hear something else to confirm I wasn’t going crazy. Eventually, I stood up and turned around. Facing the kitchen from the front of the living room, I could see into the smaller living room to my left, the staircase, the open door to the bathroom, and into the kitchen. Then, suddenly, I began to get the feeling that people were watching me from every open door in the house. I couldn’t see anything, but I knew they were there.
I bolted towards the front door to my left, running across the street to the kids playing in the baseball field catty-cornered to me. I recognized one of the kids playing wasn’t in my class, probably didn’t know me and was older and bigger than me. Panicked, I told him there was someone in my house and I begged him to come check it out with me. He must have not known who I was because he happily walked with me and went through my house.
Walking inside, the feeling was still there. It was summer time and a very hot, humid KS day so we just left the doors open. We were being watched. I don’t think he felt it like I did, but I knew we were being watched. He walked through most of the house with me and everything looked normal. There was nobody else there. Half way through going through the upstairs, Mom and Dane came back. Once I explained what had happened, and why my new friend was in our house, mom was furious. She thanked him and escorted him outside and I was told to NEVER do that again.
A couple of days went by, and I realized something. The fun allure of “my house is haunted” was gone, and I felt truly scared of my home for the first time in my life. I decided to move my Nintendo into moms room so I could play in a smaller space when nobody was home. I was constantly watching over my shoulder and listening out for anything out of the ordinary.
The next time mom and Dane left, it was after a large argument. They had decided to run off and argue in the car, or get high, or who knows what, but I was glad they had left. I was cozy up in moms room with my Nintendo and the window AC unit blasting on me. I’d brought up some snacks, a drink, and was happy that there were only 2 ways in and out of the room. The door to the hallway, and the small (completely blocked) door from moms closet to the balcony room.
Sure, I was scared, but the scare from the other day was starting to wear off and I was trying to keep it off my mind. I’d been playing games for a while, got up to run to the bathroom and rush back upstairs to keep playing my game. Again, I was glued in front of the TV. Then, out of nowhere, I felt someones finger touch my back near my left shoulder blade. Not only did they touch me, but I felt the finger snag and slightly pull my shirt as the finger fell off my back. I’d made one major mistake, I’d sat back down with my back facing the open door to the hallway.
I lost it. Again, I ran outside as fast as I could and ran to my grandparents house. Of course, they didn’t believe anything I had to say. And mom, when she got home and I’d finally told her why I ran off while she was gone, she completely shut me down again and treated me like I was making it all up. The next day, Dane left for good and I went to spend the weekend at my dads. I remember not being surprised, but somewhat sad that Dane was gone.
When I made it back to moms house, the air felt thicker than it had when I’d left. And, even though the blinds were all open, and the sun was shining into every room, the entire house felt darker than it had before. Mom and I didn’t talk about what had happened the week before, or about dane, we just sat around together and watched TV.
That night, I’m not sure if it was a full moon, but it was brighter than it usual and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. The entire room was lit from the moonlight and I found comfort that I could see everything in the room. Moms bed was placed in the far back corner of the house, up against a window. I remember laying in bed between mom and the open window behind me, the cool breeze had already put her to sleep, and I was close behind.
All of a sudden, I heard the all too familiar creek of the first step of the staircase. Someone was walking up the stairs. The bedroom door was open and looked out into the hallway and over the staircase. I laid there, on my side with my head propped up over my moms shoulder, just high enough so I could peek at whatever was coming. Of course, the light was still out in the hallway, but some light bled through from the first floor and was casting a silhouette of a tall skinny man walking up the stairs. I was relieved, not only was it NOT the invisible stair walker from my first experience, it looked like Dane was back and walking up the stairs!
I laid there, expecting mom to wake up and realize Dane had come home. She was a hard sleeper though, and the creaking of the stairs didn’t seem to wake her. As the silhouette walked up the stairs, past the view of the door, I waited for Dane to come into moms room. I heard him walking, taking slow, easy steps around the banister, further down the hallway and turn into moms room. But, when he walked into the room, I realized that Danes tall slender figure wasn’t walking through that door. The Silhouette stayed simply that, a black, shadow of a person, now somewhat transparent in the bright sunlight, with no features whatsoever. The silhouette walked over to the side of the bed, standing right in front of where mom was laying, he picked up the cover and crawled into bed next to my mom, then vanished. The house was silent. I laid next to mom, petrified, watching the covers where the “silhouette” had just laid fall flat again. I laid there, staring into the room, watching and listening for any and everything until the sun came up. I told mom what had happened and she, once again, denied everything.
Within a couple of months, mom was dating someone new, this guy was an alcoholic, an absolute idiot, and loved to take all of his problems out on us. It didn’t help that mom wasn’t much different. I hadn’t seen the “Silhouette” again since that night, but other things were starting to happen. Different things were starting to “come out of the woodwork” so to speak and it’s not getting better. I’ve started to notice that the worse things get between mom and her pet douche bag, the worse things get in the house. Oh, to top it all off, moms pregnant.