Two years ago, my girlfriend and I shared a house together. She inherited it from her grandmother but it was ours all the same. Something you should know about me before we continue, is that I can see the dead as clearly as you can read the text I’ve placed in front of you. Although I’m sure this is a shared ability among others, I’m the only one I know that has this “gift”. Even after four decades, I still find it hard to cope. Not all spirits make their presence known even to me and not all spirits are friendly and those with more animosity, tend to take on a form to better represent that trait. Those that suffered a more tragic end, look as they did when they passed.
To give you an example, a distant cousin of mine had taken his own life with a shotgun to his head. When we came to show our support and attend his funeral, I found him wandering around his casket and family member’s in attendance. A disheveled and shambling corpse without a head. Jawbone still intact along with a couple of shattered teeth remained. Just based on his movements and body language, he seemed confused but he acted as though he was completely intact. I believe the dead maintain the same functionality they had in life, but only retain the physical appearances of what remained of their bodies in death. In another instance, my family moved us to a better neighborhood so my mother could be closer to work. We shared our new home with a particularly angry spirit. One which broke heirlooms, terrorized me and coaxed my little sister onto the roof. This spirit was a woman, unidentifiable by age due to her contorted face and outstretched limbs as though her aggression towards the living was making her unrecognizable even to herself. These are particularly hard spirits to deal with because they pick up on my ability fairly quickly and prey on it for attention. She knew her appearance frightened me and she would hide on ceilings or behind doors to terrify me. All I would hear is a soft moan or echoed breathing and I knew she was around a corner just waiting. The worst is when she would just hover outside my window. Her silhouette in the moonlight just taunting me.
I want you to understand that not everything is just a bump in the night or easily explained away and if you’re walking up a flight of stairs and you have this instinctive feeling that something is behind you, it’s because it usually is. My girlfriend had resided in the house she inherited for over a year before we started seeing one another. A few months together and she asked me to move in with her. I hadn’t shared with her my ability because most don’t take it seriously and I can understand why. Others who do believe me, get too curious, ask too many questions and don’t like the answers, so I keep it to myself and hold my composure the best I can when it becomes too much.
The first week together was peaceful. Every house has spirits, but as I stated before, they aren’t all active and some do their best stay out of sight. Though these can be all the more frightening because when they do decide to come out, it happens very unexpectedly. Some of them appear so normal, that I’ve mistaken them for intruders. It wasn’t until about nine or ten days in, that my girlfriend and I were up late binge watching another series. This wasn’t out of the ordinary though. We would occasionally get a late night on days off. It wasn’t until we cut the television off and made our way to the stairs, that she hesitated. I asked her what was the matter and she explained that every so often, she would climb the stairs at night and it felt as though someone was watching her from below the railing. On a few occasions, she felt inclined to dart up the stairs in fear that someone would grab her ankle. We laughed it off and I made a game of it to race up the stairs together. It was easier to take her mind off of it. I didn’t tell her about the gentleman with deep dark scratch marks surrounding the sockets where his eyes used to be as he stood beneath the staircase following her every move as she raced up.
It was at this point I began to notice the ghosts make themselves more known. They didn’t seem aware of my ability. They seemed more fixated on my girlfriend. Such as the elderly woman who would rock back and forth in the rocking chair in the family room, or the young man covered in bruises that would pace in the kitchen. They would stop when anyone entered the room and they would just stare. Occasionally they would slam doors that were ajar when a slight breeze would pick up outside. I even found a few of the children would play with the pipes under the sink. These spirits didn’t seem malicious in nature but it was as though they were playing on my girlfriends sanity. Always events you could explain away until something you couldn’t.
For instance, I recall a time when we were tickling each other in bed before we went to sleep. The covers shifted for a moment and it startled my girlfriend. I told her it was just a reaction to us playing and didn’t mention the elongated fingers reaching out from below the bed. We stopped playing afterwards and turned away from one another to settle into more comfortable positions. Before long, I could feel tickling on my back and the sound of my girlfriends laughter followed by “stop, I have to get up early tomorrow”. It wasn’t until then that we both heard a distinct male laughter coming from between us. We both turned to look at one another, but all I could see was a man lying between us as his head tilted slightly and his gaze turned to meet mine. “What!?” My girlfriends voice rang out. My face must have turned to horror as I witnessed a man with bulbous eyes the size of plums, grinning ear to ear with sinister intent. He looked to be in his seventies, balding and bare naked. His limbs were longer than normal but his face still retained features and details that weren’t beyond abnormal. This man was losing what was left of his humanity.
It was at this point that the mood in house would shift for the worst.