bedroom haunt
tim clinkenpeel
3-story house, on opposite ends of an interconnecting hallway. it was common
for us to play pranks on each other, especially since the top floor was
'unmoderated' and the parents slept below.
at one point my brother had put a pair of old, unclean yellow underwear into
my laundry pile as he felt that he no longer needed them. in the weeks that
followed we found creative ways to pass these undies back and forth in the
nighttime hours. one night and lay in bed expecting the worst as the previous
night i had dropped the underwear, soaked with water, onto his face as he
slumbered. suddenly, i heard my brother approaching via the familar
'mush-mush-mush' noise made by footsteps on plush carpet and i prepared my
countermeasures. he stopped at the entrance to my bedroom and waited. and
waited. i sat up in bed and looked in the doorway, dimly illuminated by the
glow-in-the-dark close encounters of the third kind stickers adornming my
chest-of-drawers. i saw nothing. i laid back and pretended to lower my
guard, figuring he had retreated to the bathroom to rethink his assault.
then i heard the footsteps comming down the hall again. this was strange as i
never heard the previous footsteps retreat. again they reached my door and
stopped. this time i called out my brother's name. no response. i waited.
the footsteps came (never leaving) a third time and stopped again on my
threshold. i got up to investigate. i ventured into my brother's bedroom and
found him sound asleep (this was confirmed by his lack of reaction to me
spitting into his ear). i went back to bed a little scared and heard nothing
more that night.
the following night i was in bed sorting out the events of the day before i
drifted into slumber when i was interrupted by those familar footfalls. as
before, they stopped at the door. without hesitation i lept from my bed and
yelled 'gotcha!' looking square into .... my closed door! how could i have
heard footsteps in the hall through my door! 'shut up' i heard my muffled
brother's voice return from his bedroom.
in the next couple weeks the underwear exchanged ended but the 'ghost steps'
continued. i was slightly scared, slightly amused. one night my curious side
got the better of me and i decided to sleep on the floor, facing the door with
the door open. i stayed awake as long as possible but the night was
eventless. or so i thought.
sometime in the wee hours i awoke for no real reason, smacked my lips a few
times and repositioned myself in a more comfortable position, which
coincidentally pointed my eyes straight down the hall. it was too dark to see
much, i certainly couldn't see my brother's door twenty feet down the hallway.
i closed my eyes and let all my air out.
CRASH! i my eyes popped open, startled by what sounded like a lamp falling
off a shelf downstairs. i started to call out "mom" to see if someone was
fumbling about downstainrs, but only got so far as "m" when something caught
my eye: it was the faintest of tiny little shimmers that appeared to be about
100 feet down the hall (remember it was only 20 feet long). it pulsed a few
times in and out of sight and then began to shudder and grow. as it grew it i
noticed that the shuddering was rythmic -- a familar pattern of movement.
soon i could tell that it was like a walking gate and had the general
appearance of a figure. i was completely frozen with fright at this point,
unable to even close my eyes let alone yell or run. it seemed to take forever
to reach the point where it was actually within the boundaries of the physical
hallway, and to where i could discern its features. it was never very bright,
and appeared more like an 'un-shadow', as it did not cast any light but was
definitely brighter than the surroundings. its stride was uneven, as though
it were limping. something however was dreadfully wrong--it did not appear
three dimensional, as though its approach disobeyed the rules of perspective.
it made its way to the doorway of my room and stopped. my head screwed
upwards, completely involuntarily. i could barely make out facial features in
the blurry, dim haze of its head. it looked straight at me and mouthed what
appeared to be "RED..." and stopped with its mouth gapping, mid-sentence.
then a look of terror washed over its face--like it was trying to scream. its
eyes began to bulge in their sockets and the face appeared to sink, showing
the skull shape clearly beneath. then it began to slide into the floor with
much distortion -- more like it was being pulled into the floor with
impossible distortion and stretching. its head rotated upward, finally
breaking eye contract just before it disappeared into the carpet, as though
the carpet were water and it tried desparately to elevate its breathing
orifices.
then it was gone.
"POUND POUND POUND" faded into my audio perception. it was my heart, beating
so strongly it was literally shaking me. pain was in my chest -- *GASP* - i
had held my breath the whole time! i felt a burning on the back of my neck
and slowly turned to see what other horrors awaited me. i looked behind me to
see the morning sun streaming through my window. huh? where'd that come
from. i turned back to the hall and it was completely illumated by the light
from the window and a skylight in the hall--certainly nowhere near the pitch
black it had been seemingly moments before.
"breakfast" my mother hollered from below.
--
\clinkenpeel: aberrant analytical cynical agnostic idealist. i exclusively /
/represent myself. i do not offend anyone; however, some morons choose to \
\offend themselves. judge only those who you would have judge yourself. i /
/don't practice what i preach - i'm not the type of person i'm preaching to.\