I've always had a horrible memory. I've accepted that as a fact of life. Not only can I not remember certain events of my life, events that could free me of certain predicaments, but it also refuses to let me forget those disheartening moments I never, ever want to remember. That includes this story, and I remember every single small detail from this awful experience.
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I had never been a normal teenager or a child for that matter. I disliked sports, or cars, or whatever everyone was into at the time. It all seemed bland and boring to me. I liked to watch kids shows, alongside playing gory, violent video games, where your best friend is a fully loaded minigun against an alien that could kill you with one swipe. I never was too much into Horror; except for watching Markiplier's lets plays of Five Nights at Freddy's or Outlast. Yes, they were scary, but also funny and thrilling. Due to my obsession, the kids at my elementary and middle school called me 'The Physco Girl.' Because of this, I had maybe three, or four friends ever at that school. I wasn't too bothered by it; to me, everyone else was missing out.
In October of 2013, my Mother, who was currently living in Centerville, took my younger brother and me to look at a house available for rent in Syracuse. It looked innocent enough; two stories with a split entryway, plus an attic. One full acre of land with a private wood fence. It was probably built in the '90s. My mother didn't seem to think it necessary to question anything about the description of the house, but I did.
"Mr. Longan, sir, it says here on the paper that the last people who rented this house just up and left a month ago. Did they seem, off at all? Like they might have left something bad behind?"
"Don't worry, I had the home thoroughly cleaned." He promised.
'I'll be the judge of that.' I thought to myself. I might have been twelve at the time, but I knew very well that people like drug dealers and murderers still lived in the same area as I did. Without another word, I walked through the upstairs hallway. It was rather normal, three bedrooms with the master bathroom, and a linen closet. If my brother slept up here, which was the most likely case, then he would be safe. The doors to all the bedrooms had locks on them.
After examining the calm, normal upstairs, I headed downstairs, directly into the hallway. In front of me were the boiler and laundry room. To the right, there were three other rooms; a guest bathroom, a bedroom, and a recreation room. The guest bathroom smelled of cigarette smoke. I could already feel my lungs burn, so I quickly turned on the fan before I inhaled too much.
"Thoroughly cleaned, yeah sure bud," I muttered under my breath. I turned to face the other side of the hallway. There were three visible doors. I curiously moved the door to the stairwell, to find the famous bedroom of Harry Potter. Direct Translation for people who aren't nerds: A room underneath the stairs, containing absolutely nothing. Having satisfied my curiosity, I examined the rest of the hallway. There was a storage room at the end of it, the floor was carpeted and there was no light in it. Next to the second bedroom of Dudley, was the bedroom I decided to be my own, if we did get this house for rent, that was. It was fairly spacious and had a lock on the door. There was a window that opened up into the front yard, good for a quick escape.
Immediately across the hall from my proclaimed bedroom, was a small, walk-in closet. As soon as I opened that door, it seemed to get colder, but the room had no cooling system. It was completely wood paneling. The room was pitch black and already, I was starting to feel some strange but frightening sensations. One of those feelings you get when you've done something so utterly disgusting and horrible? That's the feeling I got. As well as catching onto a rancid smell from the room. Hesitantly, I reached for the chord that would turn on the light, not knowing what dreadful mistake I had just made. I felt sick to my stomach and wanted to scream in horror. On the wooden panels of the walls, floor and ceiling were splatters of red-brown, which I knew all too well to match to the smell: Blood. I stumbled out of the room and slammed the door shut, my hands shaking.
"Are you okay?" One of the men who was also touring the house asked me this with a concerned look.
"It looks and smells like someone died in there!" I replied. The man simply laughed at the terror on my face.
"Kids these days, watching horror movies." He chuckled before going back upstairs.
'I'm not joking, I'm not kidding around!' I quickly scrambled after him, my heart beating quickly. I hoped we never had to come here again. I hoped we never moved here.
To my dismay, however, my mother accepted the offer and we helped her move in during November. We didn't live mainly with her; my Dad had currently been taking care of us. The only thing I remember is that the movers were confused as to why my brother and I only had mattresses and not bed frames. Mother told them that she was getting us new bed frames, which was a complete and utter lie. I ended up making both me and my brother bed frames at my Dad's house with the leftover wood we had from making the shed last summer. She couldn't say we couldn't have them, it'd arouse too much suspicion. The prospect of having an actual bed frame, with enough space to hide underneath the bed if need be. I was able to hide my pocket knife better, as well as my tablet and laptop lights, not that it mattered. I had asked the Landlord if I could have a key for my bedroom, for myself only, so I could lock it during the day.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
Right away, I started having weird experiences. Around the hours of twelve and three am, I would hear doors creaking open and footsteps pounding up the staircase. I could tell they were going up because my brother wouldn't come running down to my room without my mother screaming at him close behind, and as previously stated, my mother caused a fuss wherever she went. When I walked out of my room the next morning, both doors to the "Torture Room" as I then named it, to the stairwell were open. I knew for a fact, that every night, I closed both doors, plus the storage, spare bedroom, and bathroom doors. After recognizing the pattern, I began developing extreme paranoia. I started feeling as if someone was watching me through my bedroom window, and I never left my room, not even for the bathroom, until the sun was well above the horizon in the morning. Scared that this ghost could be potentially dangerous, I did my research, to see what I could do. I tried everything suggested but the haunting experiences never stopped. I didn't tell my Mother, Mom or Dad, because I knew they wouldn't really have believed me since they thought I was already exaggerating that I had only three friends, as I was seemingly a very bubbly person.
A week before my thirteenth birthday, my Mother forced my younger brother and me to move back in with her, claiming she had the right because 'She was closer to the school we went to.' It was one of my worse panic attacks, and right in the Arctic Circle diner for all to see too. When we got home I was punished for my outburst, going to bed without dinner. I called my Dad with the cell phone he'd given me in fifth grade, one of those fifteen dollar flip phones. It was solely given to me for the purpose of calling the police if something bad had happened, due to one of my classmates being kidnapped. I never did find out if they got back home.
After school got out, I never went out of my room except to clean, eat and use the bathroom. Whenever Mother got home from where she spent her morning and afternoons, we scrambled for our bedrooms and locked our doors. So it was no surprise to us when she grounded us for the tiniest speck of dust sitting on the banister in the entryway. I swallowed hard. We'd only be given one chance to eat a day for the rest of June.
That night, I crawled into my bed, still wearing my sweatpants and a loose t-shirt. I'd pulled my hair up into a ponytail per usual, before pulling my singular blanket over my slightly chilly feet, before I ranted about my predicament to one of my real friends over a text message. We talked for a good hour before she fell asleep, and I turned on my YouTube videos on my laptop. I was well relaxed until around 3:13 am. That's when everything went downhill.
My ceiling light flickered for five seconds, sending my heart into a panicked, rapid beat. The room became frigid and my screen started to glitch out. At this point my breathing had spiked and I covered my mouth to muffle any whimpers of fright that escaped my throat. I was terrified. I know the light flickering is only a minor sign of a spirit but the cold atmosphere I'd been informed could be bad. I quietly clambered underneath my bed, not wanting to make a sound to alert the ghost, although, part of my mind knew that they knew I was there.
Outside the room, I heard the creak of a door opening, followed by a subtle thud. I couldn't tell if something or someone fell. My door was locked, and my key was on the sill of my window. I felt awful, wanting to puke and scream and cry, but I held it all in, silent tears escaping my eyes from fear.
Everything was quiet for what felt like ages. I thought everything had gone back to normal, but as soon as I moved to get in my bed, my doorknob began rattling violently. I held in a scream of panic as more tears slipped down my face. I covered my mouth with my right hand, my left arm curled around my head. I had my legs up to my stomach and I gently rocked myself to try to calm down, but the rattling just didn't stop. I was overwhelmed with my emotions, mixed with the sick feeling in my stomach, and the reality that I was hiding, cowering under my bed from this poltergeist inhabiting the house we lived in.
The rattling stopped after fifteen minutes, and the room resumed to its normal temperature. Just to be safe, I prayed for safety and waited thirty minutes before daring to look past the blanket draped over my bed that was hiding the underside of the bed. Everything looked to be normal. No dark or light figure standing in my room. I filmed my room seven times to be sure. I didn't see any figure in any of the clips. One of my friends was thankfully awake, so I sent her the videos, and she confirmed she didn't see anything, then proceeded to ask me what happened. I told her everything, crying softly as I did. I still felt like I was being watched outside my window, but I didn't dare to look, in case it was true. She told me that if the ghost really had it out for me, I probably wouldn't be alive right now. As bad as it sounded, it gave me some relief to know that this spirit just wanted to fool around, and had no intention of harming me. Not yet at least.
In the week that followed, I moved my things upstairs into the empty room next to my younger brother's. Even though one of the people upstairs didn't particularly make me feel safe, it would keep me somewhat sane and hopefully stop these hauntings. It'd been about four months. I thought I was okay, that nothing else would happen.
One day I was home alone and would be for several hours. Normally, I'm fine home alone, I just watched videos while I cleaned my room up. As I was wiping down the walls with a rag, I felt something tightly grab my right shoulder. I gasped, dropping the now red, damp rag, my hand shaking. I felt the color drain from my face as the lights flickered and the room was cold for a moment. I heard a male voice whisper my name in my ear, and I turned around in fright, but nothing was there. The only thing I could now hear was my frantic heartbeat pounding against my chest.
I scrambled out of my room, got my shoes on and left the house, just as I saw the downstairs stairwell door open. I ran to our backyard, since I didn't know if I could trust my neighbors, and hid in the pen of baby goats. The eldest of the three, Yang, was my goat. He got into my lap and nuzzled me, letting me cry into the fur on his neck. I didn't go back inside until my younger brother came home. From that point on, even to this day, I warn people not to let me stay home alone for longer than five hours. I still experience some lights flickering, or I sometimes see people in the corner of my eye that aren't actually there for just a split second.
After we moved out of the house, I looked up who the last tenants were. It was only a man, looked middle-aged. His body was found in a field, but they tracked his place of death back to the house. It frightens me to think what would've happened if that poltergeist decided that I was like his killer.