I grew up on a small farm in western New York. It was an old farmhouse, built in the 1850s. Weird stuff happened frequently. You’d set an object down, and it would disappear, only to reappear later in the same place. Being a farm, we had a lot of animals, particularly cats and dogs. The cats would often watch something we couldn’t see moving around the room, and sometimes they would hiss at nothing. My little sister and I had a lot of frightening experiences over the years.
Something often came into our room at night. I once heard it slowly climb up the stairs, then a figure looked around my door but quickly retreated when it saw me looking at it. My sister said she often felt something settle at the foot of her bed, like an adult was sitting there. Sometimes she could see the silhouette of an old man. We often wondered if it was our grandfather since she didn’t remember feeling frightened by the presence.
I remember very clearly waking up early when I was about 13. I don’t remember where my sister was, but I was alone in the room. This would have been maybe 5:30 in the morning, and the sun was just starting to rise. My cat was howling, and I mean HOWLING. He was normally really sweet and relaxed, but he was freaking out, running between me and the door and meowing his head off. Finally he just bolted out the door and ran downstairs.
I shrugged it off and rolled over, trying to go back to sleep. I could feel something wasn’t right, and turned back toward the door to see what was up. Standing on the other side of the room was a white female figure. I couldn’t see her face, but I could make out her long hair and body. We just sat there staring at each other for what felt like an eternity. Finally, I heard people starting to move around downstairs, and the figure disappeared.
We also used to have a German shepherd named Jasmine. She was a ferocious guard dog, and if she heard or smelled anything out of place, she would bark to be let out. One day, I was upstairs in my bedroom, and I heard Jasmine start barking. I went downstairs to let her out, expecting her to be waiting by the door, only she wasn’t. She was standing in the living room, barking and growling at thin air. I asked her if she wanted to go outside, but she totally ignored me and kept barking at whatever it was she saw. When she finally stopped, she looked at me and was completely perplexed.
If I was ever home alone in the middle of the day, I’d always hear voices from downstairs, usually male voices. I’d go down, thinking maybe someone had stopped by, but I wouldn’t see anyone and the voices would stop.
One night, I woke up (I’m a very light sleeper) and turned over so I was looking toward my sister’s side of the room. I saw a little girl standing there, and it definitely wasn’t my sister. For one thing, I could see my sister sleeping soundly in her bed. This girl had thick, wild hair that went down to her waist, and she was standing there, arms hanging out to the side, like she was ready to pounce. I quickly turned the light on, but couldn’t see anyone, or anything that would have cast such a distinct shadow. The next morning I woke up to my sister freaking out because all of her horse pictures had been torn off the walls.
In addition to that, several years after this particular incident, the people who previously owned our house dropped by to talk to my mom. They asked her if anyone had seen the little girl who haunted the house.
Another time I had this really vivid nightmare about zombies. I was surrounded and they started pulling at me, only I woke up and I could still see them. They were in my room, crawling over my bed, grabbing at me. I turned on my light and blinked frantically until they disappeared. I breathed a sigh of relief, then looked up. Not four feet away, a black mass was hovering. It shot into my closet when I looked directly at it.
A few years after that, I was home alone on a very dark, winter night. I was sitting on the couch reading a book. My sister’s cat, Stormy, was laying on top of the recliner, drifting off to sleep. Then, I saw a grayish figure walk through the living room and into my parents’ room. I might have thought I imagined it, except Stormy had watched it, too, and her eyes were glued to the spot where it disappeared.
When I was 16-17, my parents decided to remodel their bedroom. When they started breaking down the wall in their closet, they found a bible. We think it was written in German, and the weird thing was it looked singed around the edges. We knew there had been a fire in the home many years ago. My parents wanted to keep the bible out, but I insisted they replace it. They listened, but I think the damage was done.
My sister and I didn’t get much sleep until they finished the remodel. We kept waking up scared, and both of us were having nightmares. Sometimes we would hear noises during the night, like whispering or footsteps. Then, we started waking up with injuries we couldn’t account for. Finger-shaped bruises appeared on our wrists, I had a long burn running down my face, and my sister had three deep scratches on her chest. Once the construction stopped, things calmed down for the most part, but we would still hear footsteps when we were alone in the house, and I often heard my name being called.
I have since moved out of the house. My sister still lives there, but refuses to talk about the things we experienced.”