I had a good childhood for the most part. I grew up in a neighborhood that had plenty of kids my age to play with. There was a lake with a rope swing for hot summer days. Growing up in Florida a shady cool lake was a welcome reprieve. My grandma even lived next door to us and it was nice having her close by.
When I was 12 things started taking a sinister turn. The first thing I remember happening was one night I was lying in my bed watching TV and my closed closet door swung open, hit the wall, and slammed shut. I ran to the living room where my parents were and in tears, told them what had just happened. As parents sometimes do, they didn’t believe me.
That night as I tried to fall asleep I heard something bang on our utility room door. It sounded like they were trying to break it down. Real quick, let me give you the set up of my house. It was basically a long hallway with rooms off of either side. You could stand at the front door and see the back door. My dad added a utility room/workshop when I was about 8 and it made the house look huge. The actual living area was really small though. Anyway, because of how small the house as I heard the banging loud and clear. I screamed for my parents and they both came running into my room. I told them what I had heard and my dad went to check it out while my mom tried to calm me down. My dad found nothing and I ended up sleeping in their room that night.
After that, the activity in the house really picked up. We would find things completely out of place. Car keys would be in the kitchen, a vase that was on the bookshelf in the living room would be in the bathroom. Just objects out of place everywhere.
This was also when I started seeing a black figure at my bedroom door. At first it would just stand there and stare into my room. I told my mom about it and she said I must just be dreaming. I was not dreaming. I was wide awake.
Soon the figure started coming into my room, closer and closer to my bed. It was terrifying. One night I got up the nerve to try to run past it. It didn’t touch me that I could see but I was pushed back onto my bed with such force that my head hit the wall between my room and my parents’ room. My mom came in to see what happened and I told her. She looked at me with concern and told me to just come to sleep in her room.
I continued to see this figure at least 3 times a week until I was 15. One day I had had enough and I went to talk to my grandma. I just told her what I had seen and described what it looked like. She said that she thought it was my grandfather, her husband. She told me that he had been an abusive drunk. Getting his thrills from scaring his children, my dad, and uncle, and being physically abusive to her. I asked why she didn’t leave him and she said she tried twice. The first time he found her at her sisters’ house alone and threatened to kill her if she tried it again. The second time he found her and she said he almost did kill her. She wouldn’t go into how though.
After I talked to her the activity stopped. Just like that, no more. I never saw the figure again.
When I was 21 my mom died of brain cancer. The activity picked up again. One day I was playing Playstation in my room and I smelled her perfume. Lady in White. It was her favorite. Once again items around the house would go missing and be found later in weird places like the bathroom closet. I worked overnights and one morning I came home to find my mother in the kitchen in the dress she had been buried in. Just standing there. She was looking right at me. She smiled and was gone.
I continued to live with my dad and when I was 24 started dating the girl I am married to now. One evening I got off work at 10pm and we decided to go out. She came to my house to pick me up and as I was getting my stuff together we were standing in the living room. She said, “what the hell is that?” I looked up and on the ceiling, there were brightly colored circles going in a circle right above our heads. Remember the door I heard pounding on? Well while we were looking at the circles dancing around, that door fell. Just fell right off the hinges that had held it in place for 16 years and landed right in the middle of the hallway. We walked over to the door and just stood there staring at it then got the hell out of there.
My dad had been on a business trip and when he came home I told him what happened. I could tell he didn’t really believe me but considering I wasn’t the partying type or someone who just took doors off of hinges he didn’t really know what else to think. He put the door back up on the same hinges, all the while muttering that he didn’t see how it could have just fallen off.
After that my girlfriend’s cousin had gotten married and quite a bit of her family had come in for the wedding. Two of her cousins that she hadn’t seen in years ended up coming back to my house with the two of us and we had some drinks, listened to music, and just had our own little party. Her cousin Terry had to use the bathroom and when he came back he asked if we had recently had the bathroom redone. We had but there was no way he could have known that. He started walking around the house and was saying things like “that end table used to be in that corner didn’t it?” When he got to my parents’ room he said your mom or a motherly figure is in here. He then described her to a T. At this time my dad and I had pretty much packed up pictures and there was none of my mom out anywhere that he would have seen.
He described my mother sleeping with a knife in her bed which was believable since she and my dad had a pretty hostile relationship when he drank too much. He also described what our kitchen had looked like before we had had it redone. Still, no clue how he knew all of this.
One night my girlfriend stayed the night at my house when my dad was on a business trip and since it was bigger, we slept in my parents’ bed. At about 4 am she woke me up and said I just saw your mom standing by the closet. I looked over and there was what looked like a cloud of smoke still there. Another time my girlfriend was sick and left work early. She came to my house and I went to go get her medicine. When I got back she was asleep on the couch covered up with a quilt. I just assumed she had gotten it off my bed. When she finally woke up I gave her the medicine and she thanked me for covering her up. I told her I didn’t do it and she said she certainly had not so we just put it off to my mom again.
I’ve lived in 4 different places since that time and in each of those places, something paranormal/weird has always happened. I don’t know if it’s attached to me or if I just happened to get all the weirdo houses but since this is so long I’ll end it here. Stay tuned for more stories though
Story By:
Dorothy Zbornak
