Around three years before I was born, my family moved into this house. I’m not sure how long they were there, but I do know that something drove them out. It took a long time before my mom would tell me about things that occurred there, and even to this day I only know a handful of it all.
When they first moved in, it started as small things. Picture frames tilting with no reason; plates being moved across the counter when someone would leave the kitchen and then re-enter. Things like that. And then lights would flicker. My mom told me that she would wake up in the middle of the night and hear my oldest brother telling someone to “Turn that light off, I’m trying to sleep!” and, sure enough, the light down the hall would shut off.
But when my mom hung a cross on the wall, things got worse. The cross flipped upside down and was knocked off the wall every time it was put back up. Heavier things began moving of their own accord. My mom, dad, and brothers would feel someone in the room with them, or see shadows out of the corner of their eye that would disappear if they tried to look at them. Once when my mom was home alone and in the shower, the curtain was pushed in on her, as if someone was trying to wrap it around her; there was no window in the bathroom nor was there any sort of a draft that could cause it. After that my mom refused to shower without someone else in the house with her. A few times my mom woke up to see a figure standing in the corner watching her. Over time, the figure started to look more and more like a person, a man, with an almost corpse-like appearance. Grey skin, sunken dark eyes, and bony fingers with long claws.
Everyone tried their hardest to keep all of this from my sister, who was about five when all of this was going on. But one morning, as my mom was taking her to school, she stopped before getting out of the car and told my mom that she had a confession. She said that, about a week before, she’d woken up and seen a man standing at the foot of her bed. This man had grey skin, she said, with big black eyes and sharp claws, an identical description to the man that my mom had seen. Scared, my sister hid underneath her covers, and she heard the man start coming toward her. He reached out for her but grabbed the edge of the sheet instead, and ended up ripping it. It got quiet and after a few minutes, my sister peeked out to see that the man was gone but had completely shredded the edge of her sheets with his nails. Worried that she might get in trouble, she switched them out for another sheet set and balled up the destroyed ones, shoving them at the bottom of the laundry. She was telling my mom this now because she knew eventually the sheets would be found, and she couldn’t keep it in anymore.
Horrified, my mom checked my sister’s laundry basket. There at the bottom was a giant wad of her sheets, giant claws marks in the bottom corner.
After this, my mom started making both of my brothers and my sister sleep in one room right across the hall from my parents’ room, with both doors open so she could always keep an eye on them. For a few days this worked; the lights didn’t flicker, the man didn’t appear again, and things seemed like they were going back to normal. Until one night, when my mom woke up to see the man standing in the center of the kids’ room across the hall. He smiled at her and put a hand right over my sleeping brother’s face and just held it there above him, not touching him. It was then that, although the man’s lips weren’t moving, my mom heard someone tell her “Get out.”
My family moved out shortly thereafter. Within a few weeks they were in another house and the man never showed up again. My mom got in contact with some of the previous renters of the house and nearly all of them told her that they had had paranormal/creepy things happen while they were living there, things that had ultimately caused all of them to move out. The ones who said they never experienced anything of the sort were couples who either had no children or ones who were far older than my brothers and sister. It seemed that this man targeted families with young children and adolescents, the same age bracket that my brothers and sister were a part of.
The house went through another renter or two after my family moved out, and only a year or so later was destroyed in a tornado. The property was sold and has since been turned into a parking lot that my mom refuses to ever use. My dad avoided the questions; my sister and oldest brother occasionally mention it, and my other brother seems oblivious to anything that happened there. My mom is the only person willing to talk about it, and even then it’s not very much or very often. She’s still scared of that house, and especially of that man.
When they first moved in, it started as small things. Picture frames tilting with no reason; plates being moved across the counter when someone would leave the kitchen and then re-enter. Things like that. And then lights would flicker. My mom told me that she would wake up in the middle of the night and hear my oldest brother telling someone to “Turn that light off, I’m trying to sleep!” and, sure enough, the light down the hall would shut off.
But when my mom hung a cross on the wall, things got worse. The cross flipped upside down and was knocked off the wall every time it was put back up. Heavier things began moving of their own accord. My mom, dad, and brothers would feel someone in the room with them, or see shadows out of the corner of their eye that would disappear if they tried to look at them. Once when my mom was home alone and in the shower, the curtain was pushed in on her, as if someone was trying to wrap it around her; there was no window in the bathroom nor was there any sort of a draft that could cause it. After that my mom refused to shower without someone else in the house with her. A few times my mom woke up to see a figure standing in the corner watching her. Over time, the figure started to look more and more like a person, a man, with an almost corpse-like appearance. Grey skin, sunken dark eyes, and bony fingers with long claws.
Everyone tried their hardest to keep all of this from my sister, who was about five when all of this was going on. But one morning, as my mom was taking her to school, she stopped before getting out of the car and told my mom that she had a confession. She said that, about a week before, she’d woken up and seen a man standing at the foot of her bed. This man had grey skin, she said, with big black eyes and sharp claws, an identical description to the man that my mom had seen. Scared, my sister hid underneath her covers, and she heard the man start coming toward her. He reached out for her but grabbed the edge of the sheet instead, and ended up ripping it. It got quiet and after a few minutes, my sister peeked out to see that the man was gone but had completely shredded the edge of her sheets with his nails. Worried that she might get in trouble, she switched them out for another sheet set and balled up the destroyed ones, shoving them at the bottom of the laundry. She was telling my mom this now because she knew eventually the sheets would be found, and she couldn’t keep it in anymore.
Horrified, my mom checked my sister’s laundry basket. There at the bottom was a giant wad of her sheets, giant claws marks in the bottom corner.
After this, my mom started making both of my brothers and my sister sleep in one room right across the hall from my parents’ room, with both doors open so she could always keep an eye on them. For a few days this worked; the lights didn’t flicker, the man didn’t appear again, and things seemed like they were going back to normal. Until one night, when my mom woke up to see the man standing in the center of the kids’ room across the hall. He smiled at her and put a hand right over my sleeping brother’s face and just held it there above him, not touching him. It was then that, although the man’s lips weren’t moving, my mom heard someone tell her “Get out.”
My family moved out shortly thereafter. Within a few weeks they were in another house and the man never showed up again. My mom got in contact with some of the previous renters of the house and nearly all of them told her that they had had paranormal/creepy things happen while they were living there, things that had ultimately caused all of them to move out. The ones who said they never experienced anything of the sort were couples who either had no children or ones who were far older than my brothers and sister. It seemed that this man targeted families with young children and adolescents, the same age bracket that my brothers and sister were a part of.
The house went through another renter or two after my family moved out, and only a year or so later was destroyed in a tornado. The property was sold and has since been turned into a parking lot that my mom refuses to ever use. My dad avoided the questions; my sister and oldest brother occasionally mention it, and my other brother seems oblivious to anything that happened there. My mom is the only person willing to talk about it, and even then it’s not very much or very often. She’s still scared of that house, and especially of that man.
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