Happy Halloween to our dear readers!
I come from a long line of sensitives, mostly on my mother's side, with varying degrees of ability. Sometimes it's been a gift and other times it's been a curse. Something follows us, or someone, however you choose to look at it. I know many out there have never experienced the paranormal, and search for explanations when something occurs, as they should.
Sometimes, however, there isn't an explanation. Today I thought it would be fun to share a real ghost story. But it is not just any ghost story; it is a true ghost story from my childhood that I sincerely hope all of you will enjoy. I have so many that I've even considered turning them into a book, and I love swapping ghost experiences with people. If you'd like to share yours, I would enjoy reading them in the comment section below!
A Real Ghost Story!
I spent much of my childhood hearing about the experiences my mother and aunts had growing up in their old house, things my cousins and I have experienced as well. From simple bumps in the night, nightmares about the dead coming down the stairs and lamps turning on and off on their own, to full-blown shadow figures standing at the edges of our beds. I rarely slept upstairs, and never alone when at my grandparent's house. My grandparents on my dad's side also had a creepy, old house where my siblings, myself, and my children, as well as several friends, have experienced a man in golfing clothes standing outside the window of the art room, the sound of horse hooves thundering through the surrounding woods, doors opening while we slept - including the small attic door in the hall where we would hear what sounded like a doll's laugh or a music box, a sparkling, swirling mist that would always lift from the bottom left poster on the bed frame. Or my childhood home, where the story I want to share, happens to be just one of many.
I could go for hours about my family's experiences alone, including the home I live in now, where we are dealing with something that mimics the voices of family members and we've even seen people who aren't home at the time walk across the living room floor. We've even seen apparitions of a little girl or a very tall shadow person, or even just yesterday when I heard a loud bang, prompting me to walk into the living room to see what happened. I found an old book lying in the middle of the floor like it had been thrown, several feet away from where it had been sitting for over a month.
This particular story is from the scariest night of my life. I've recounted this story on several occasions, so some readers, at least some of the ones who know me well, will recognize this particular story. It involved only myself and my little brother, by four years, Robert, who played the role of my protector.
It took place during the fall, and I was in middle school at the time. It was Texas, so, as usual, this particular night was hot and muggy. I had kicked the covers off of myself at some point and was startled by a dream that I had found to be very scary at the time. In this dream, a skeletal-faced thing came through my window, which ran directly beside my bed, and scratched me across my neck and chest, which caused me to jolt out of bed. I remember my heart was loudly pounding in my ears and my neck was burning. I brought my hand to my throat and felt a sting, coupled with a slight dampness, which prompted me to slide out of bed to look at myself in my bathroom mirror. As I looked at my throat and chest, I noticed that there were three slightly bloody and raised scratches. It was only lightly bleeding, however, and I noticed that I had quite a bit of skin underneath my fingernails. As I realized that I had done this to myself, I started to relax. It had only been a dream. However, as I began to clean myself up, the window to my bathroom began making frantic scratching noises against the screen. Briefly alarmed, I quickly dismissed this as just being June bugs, this is important, as June bugs aren't active in the fall. But I wasn't thinking about that, at first.
After I cleaned up, I started to get back into my bed, eagerly wanting to sleep because I had to be up early for school the next day. However, the window by my bed started making scratching noises like the ones that were in the restroom, but now I was much more awake, and it occurred to me that June bugs were no longer in season and hadn't been for a couple of months at that point. I stood frozen in the center of my room, staring at my window. Desperately, I tried to convince myself that this was just some type of bug trying to get in. Despite my racing heart, I knew that I needed to see the evidence that nothing was trying to get in. With everything in me, I forced my legs to walk towards my bed. I climbed into it and crawled to the side by the window. Slowly, I reached out my hand and grasped the edge of my curtains. I forced myself to take three deep, long breaths before I yanked the curtain open, only to reveal absolutely nothing.
I stared out the window for a moment and then chuckled to myself for getting all worked up. But as soon as I lay down and began to pull the covers back over me, the sounds started again. But this time, in both my bathroom and bedroom windows. I promptly stood up in my bed and jumped towards the middle of my floor, suddenly convinced that something would reach out and grab my ankles, pulling me under my bed.
From there and ran towards my brother's room. He is four years younger than I am, but frankly, he was crazy. The boy had so many homemade weapons and was so used to watching horror films, plus I knew he would wake up. My mom and dad were both heavy sleepers. As I told him what happened, his bedroom window began making scratching noises, he grabbed one of his homemade swords as we jumped back into the hallway. The vent on the wall outside his bedroom door began to forcibly shake, as loud sounds of wind and screaming erupted from it. Terrified, I grabbed my brother and we started running towards the living room. We stopped briefly in front of our little sister's door to decide whether we should wake her or not. We didn't want to scare her so we decided against it, however, as we turned away, we heard the loud and frantic scratching against her bedroom window now, as well.
While rushing to the living room, all of our doorknobs that led to the outside of the house, specifically three door knobs. The front door, the back door, and the garage door began to violently shake as if multiple people were aggressively trying to get in at the same time. While this was happening the scratching began on the large living room window, and the equally large kitchen window on the opposite side We ran into the kitchen to find something to protect ourselves, and funny enough my weapon of choice turned out to be a spatula and a mallet. The sounds of wind and terrified screams still loudly shook the vent in the hallway, the loud and wild scratching at the windows sounded like a thousand claws trying to get in and the metal clacking from the knobs violently twisting back and forth came to a head and Robert had decided he was going to confront whatever it was that was trying to get in. I begged him not to because I was so terrified of what I thought would happen to him when he opened the door, but stubbornness runs deep in our family, and he was going to do whatever he wanted, and he did.
Robert ran ahead, knife in the air ready to strike whatever was trying to get to us, and as he threw open the door, everything came to an abrupt halt. The silence deafening. The wind and screams stopped, the shaking knobs stopped, the scratching stopped. The only sound was the echo of my heartbeat, which felt like it would break free from my chest. Robert and I just looked at one another and kind've laughed a little. We've had so many experiences growing up, but never anything quite that frantic or dangerous feeling. He shut and locked the back door, and we decided that he would stay in my room for the night. My little brother, my hero, sat watch over me the rest of the night to make sure I was able to get sleep. Nothing quite like that has happened to us since we've had scares. We had creepy occurrences, but that was the wildest, scariest night of my life.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kimberly Ann
Kimberly Ann Campbell is an up-and-coming author, who has written three published best-selling novels with her best friend, and co-author Jenna Morrison, in which they originally used the pseudonym, Kenna Campbell. Born in Houston, Texas, and raised in the small town of Huffman, she grew up in a close-knit and supportive family and is now a proud wife, mother, and grandmother to her own beautiful family. Writing had been something she had always wanted to do, and thanks to her natural storytelling abilities, along with encouragement from her husband and a determined bestie, she finally felt brave enough to take that journey. After a brief hiatus, the duo is back again, ready to share the ideas they have been excited about for years with their audience.
Outside of writing, Kimberly works passionately as a preschool teacher, and enjoys cooking, baking, painting, drawing, listening to music, anything involving magic or a good ghost story, camping, watching movies, and binging comedies. She has a soft spot for children and animals and enjoys spending her free time with her family and pets.
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