Hide and Seek

Finally, the instructions are done, the warnings are over. My brother and I wave one last time as my parents pull away from the house heading for their anniversary dinner. We are teenagers, but this is the first time we've been left home alone.

We start scheming about what we can do that mom and dad won't normally let us do. I tell my brother, who is three years younger than I am, a scary story. He scoffs and brushes it off. Truth be told, I think I scared myself more than I did him.

We root through the refrigerator and cupboards to see what snacks we can eat while mom isn't home to tell us we've had enough. It isn't as much fun when we're allowed to do it, so the snack food gets put away.

It's getting dark outside. He suggests a game of hide and seek. He's good at it. I can't ever find him, but I agree. My one stipulation is that we have to play the game in the dark. There is some light coming in from outside from the street lights that are just beginning to wink on.

He agrees. I'm hoping he will be too scared to find a really good place to hide. We play some silly version of eeny-meeny-miney-mo to decide who gets to hide first. My brother wins and I hide my eyes.

I count to the one hundred skipping a few as I become impatient to start the search. I hope he hears me cheat. If he scolds me about it, I'll get a clue to his location, but he stays silent. The house is quiet. I've been listening intently trying to hear him, but he's very good at stealth.

I look in his room, in his closet, under his bed. He isn't there. He's not in the garage or in the storage closet out there. I've been switching on lights as I go because in reality, I'm the one that's afraid of the dark. I would never admit it because he'd tease me unmercifully.

I'm afraid he's moving as I search the house because I haven't seen or heard him at all. His favorite part of this game is moving around so I never find him. He usually sneaks to places I've already checked. Since the lights must be alerting him to those places, I stop turning them on and swallow my fear.

I move back to his bedroom since that would have been easy for him to move to while I was out in the garage. I have to wait a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dark. I can see well enough to make out shapes. He isn't any where in his room.

I sneak down the hallway towards the dining room, thinking he maybe under the table. I peer through the doorway, again waiting a second for my eyes to adjust to the level of light in this room. I see a patch of darkness in front of me, darker and more solid than the rest of the room. The dark moves.

"I found you," I yell.

He says nothing.

"I found you. Don't pretend you're not standing right there."

I can now make out a pattern in the shirt of the person standing in front of me. As I reach out to grab my brother, I remember my brother wasn't wearing a dark shirt with a pattern on it, he was wearing a white tee shirt. I step back away from the figure.

I reach out, fumbling behind me trying to find the door jamb, so I can feel for the light switch on the wall. I touch cloth on a body. I let out a blood curdling scream and then light suddenly floods the room.

"What is wrong with you?" my brother asks. "Who are you talking to? You didn't find me."

There is no one in the room, but my brother and me. I tell him what I saw and he laughs at me.

"There was someone here," I say, "He was tall, like you, but he was wearing a dark print shirt and I could see him reaching out to touch me just before you came in."

"I think you're scary story scared you. There isn't anyone here," he says.


We walk back into the living room turning on every light as we go. I sit down on the couch still shaken and then I notice the garage door.

"Look," I say, "The door into the garage is open."

"Yeah it is. So? You must have left it open when you were looking for me. I heard you go out there."

"No I didn't leave the door open. I know I didn't. I didn't want you to sneak out there after I checked and thought I'd hear you better if you had to open the door."

"You left it open."

"Nope, I know I didn't," I insist.

Suddenly we both hear a soft creaking sound. When we look again at the garage door, it is closing all by itself. Neither of us move as the door moves and then snaps shut.

"Who's crazy now?" I whisper. "I told you there was someone in the dining room."

"Someone or something. No real person could have gotten past us to get to the garage. I didn't see anyone when I turned on the light." He whispers back.

I move as quickly as I can to lock the garage door and then I rush back to my brother.

"I'm not going out there to see if anyone is there or not. If they are, they'll still be there when mom and dad get home."

"Fine with me," he says.

We sit quietly, listening for any sounds coming from the garage. All is quiet. Mom and dad finally arrive home and don't mention anyone running out of the garage when they parked the car so we decide to keep the story to ourselves.

"I don't know about you," he whispers to me later, "but, I'm not anxious for mom and dad to leave us home alone any time soon."

"Me either."

Not Everything Scary is Supernatural!

Dark tales don't have to involve just ghosts and monsters! For all of us that have ever had a job of any kind, I'm sure there is a story or two about the scary boss or co-worker.

I've worked with people that I've helped, literally held their hand so they could do their job and prevented them from getting fired only to have them turn around and stab me in the back to make themselves look better.

I've worked with the nightmare boss that doesn't really want anyone to learn their job too well or have all the information they need to do their job so she is the only one that ever shines. The boss that calls her employees stupid and other unpleasant things. The boss that is so mean and vindictive that you find yourself hoping that she falls down the stairs at the end of the day, not to die or anything so terrible but a few bruises or maybe a broken arm or leg would do her good!

I've listened in a dark bar while the guy behind me tells me that it would be so much fun to mow down everyone in the bar with an automatic weapon. I babysat for people that left their children with me and didn't come back to get them until the next day. I've kept the two year old that cussed me out but then realized his mother had more boyfriends than crayola has colors.

It's a dark world we live in. Darker than we care to admit. I try to focus on the positive and on the beauty God has given us because sometimes people are just too scary and disappointing.

Back to Dreams

When I was very young, the scariest thing I could imagine was losing my mom or dad. I would pray every night that they would live forever. I probably even promised to always be good. That's what kids do!

When I was about twelve, I began having dreams/nightmares in which I was flying in a dark mist. I knew my brother was dead in the dream and I would cry and cry and refuse to believe it. I was flying frantically back and forth in the dark mist to find him and bring him home. I could feel my parents sadness, it was a terrible dream. I would wake covered in perspiration and short of breath from sobbing. My pillow would literally be wet from my crying and I would sneak to my brother's room to make sure he was okay.

I had this dream for years. I never told anyone because I was afraid telling it would make it come true. I even had this dream after I grew up and was married with children of my own. I prayed hard for my brother. Every day that he went to work, every time he was going out of town or some place new I would ask God to protect him.

My brother and I were very close growing up. We weren't just brother and sister, we were best friends. I would protect him and watch over him and he would do the same for me.

I was always afraid that the military would be the cause of my dream coming true. He had a big heart and he was too willing to play the hero. He was a big guy, 6' 5" tall with a heart and spirit to match. When he wasn't interested in a military pursuit and no wars happened when he was nearing eighteen, I was so relieved.

When he reached the age of 22, I started having the dream every couple of weeks, then several times a week, finally every night. I talked to him and begged him to be careful. He scoffed and brushed off my concerns. It was just his over-protective big sister. I got mad at him and finally told him about my dream and again begged him to be very careful.

He didn't listen. Two weeks later, he was gone. He died driving two friends on a foggy, wet night because they were too intoxicated to drive. He didn't want to be there, but he didn't want anything to happen to them. One of them made it, my brother did not.

After his death, I saw the accident over and over again when I closed my eyes. I had never seen the road he was on or the boys he was with, but I saw everything as if I was there with him. I don't know if it was my brother trying to show me what happened or not.

If it was, then the boy that survived is the one that caused the accident. He jerked the steering wheel from my brother's hand. I saw it. The boy laughed because he was very intoxicated. My brother was very angry and tried without success to bring his truck back under control.

I can't prove anything from a vision. I couldn't stop anything from a dream. I know I miss him terribly. I miss all the years I should have had with him. I miss the sister-in-law I should have had and the nieces and nephews that would have been like my own children.

I've never had another premonition of this kind and neither do I want one because it did absolutely no good. If the boy that survived the accident caused it, my only hope is that he wasn't too intoxicated to remember what he caused. I hope it haunts him every day of his life.

Ghosts

I have always been sensitive. Some might call me empathetic. I know that from a young age, animals have always been drawn to me, especially when frightened. The same goes with people that have certain handicaps for lack of a better word and I don't mean to be derogatory in any way, but people with Down's syndrome or other disorders that cause emotional/mental issues.

I sense things that others do not. I can always read the true feelings behind someone's words. I see their true feelings and intentions and it is often unpleasant and disappointing. Because of this, I tend not to get close to very many people.

I have seen "ghosts" quite a few times in my life. I don't know why. I don't see them all the time, thankfully, but I have seen them.

When I was an older teenager, I helped my grandmother move to a new apartment. I spent the night with her that night and throughout the entire night I did not get much sleep due to three very nasty old women who did not seem to understand that they didn't belong in this world any longer.

They laughed and goaded me all night long. I sat up against the wall at the head of my bed and just kept telling them to go away to no avail.  I did not tell my grandmother of this occurrence because I didn't want to influence her situation and hoped it was just me.

My grandmother was also known to be sensitive to certain things and had a number of "experiences" in her life. Several months after she moved in, I noticed that she didn't seem very happy or content in her new apartment. I asked her what was bothering her and she told me nothing was wrong.

It became apparent that something was wrong after another month or so and I finally coaxed her to tell me what it was. She told me that I would think she was crazy but that three very nasty women haunted the apartment and tormented her nearly every night.

I was astonished that her experience so closely resembled my own, even down to her description of the women. She moved not long after that.

When I was much older, with young children of my own, I had another experience. I have two daughters. At the time of this experience, they were about 2 and 4 years old. I had an in home daycare and had several children all around this age at the time. On this day, we were eating lunch at the breakfast table which sat in a large bay window.

All of the children and myself saw a young boy in a blue shirt walking up our front walkway towards the front door. I instructed the children to finish their lunch and I walked to the door thinking it was the little boy from down the street, who was too young to be walking to my house by himself, but when I got to the door, no one was there.

The children went back outside to play and never saw the boy again. Later that evening, I was by myself in the home. My children were asleep in their own rooms, my husband was working late and I was up cleaning and crocheting with the company of our little dog.

I was in the family room and heard something in the living room. I walked through switching on the kitchen light which shone into the living room. When I arrived in the living room, which was already lit by a soft table lamp, I saw something run from the curtains in the bay window to stand behind a television cabinet. It was the size of a young child. I could see it was a boy. His head was just visible over the top of the cabinet and he was gripping the top of the cabinet with his fingers.

I called out for him to come out of hiding with no response. I walked to where he was standing and there was nothing there. I thought maybe I was seeing things, but the little dog that followed me everywhere was standing at the edge of the room, hair standing on end, growling and staring at the spot where the child had just been moments before.

I checked my children's rooms and they were both sound asleep and could not have slipped past me to go back to their rooms from this location in our home. I never saw the child again, but I assume it was a deceased child that was drawn to the play and commotion of all the children.

I did learn later that the brother and sister that I watched had lost an older sibling several months before I started watching them, but I believe it was a girl, not a boy.

Strange things happen, dear readers, I'd love to hear some of your experiences!

Bad Dreams

Sometimes we all have nightmares. The common ones, in which, someone or something is chasing us and we just can't run fast enough or we're running in place, but just before the monster gets us, we wake up!

My nightmares go beyond the normal. In one that dream that reoccurred frequently, I was lying in my bed in my room. Everything seemed very real as if I wasn't even asleep. There is a perfect square of light on my closet door from the street light that shines through the bedroom window. 

The square of light begins to glow from inside, it is no longer just a flat plane of light, it is an opening. The light changes and seems to be mixed with mist or fog. I feel paralyzed. I am lying on my back with the sheet tucked firmly around my body. The sheet makes me feel protected.

As I watch the square of light. I see shadows moving within it. They become darker with more substance and I see many separate dark forms taking shape in the light that has somehow become a door or a portal. The forms begin to climb out of the light. 

I see them struggling to squeeze themselves through the opening one leg or arm at a time. The things coming through the portal are nothing like things that one would see in this world. They are monstrous, mean and evil. The air in the room is thick with their irreverent presence.

Soon there are so many in the throng that surrounds my bed that I can hardly see the patch of light on the closet door. I can actually feel the heat from their bodies and their fetid breath is making it hard to breathe. 

They laugh at and taunt me. Pointing the parts of their bodies that pass for fingers. I know if I move they will be able to grab me. My stillness and the protective sheet are all that is keeping me out of their grasp.

The taunts are meant to make me leave the safety of my cocoon, but I know better. I shut my eyes, but their laughter is a cacophony. I am trembling and sweating. Their presence is so heavy that they are pushing the air from the room. I breathe shallowly, gasping to get enough oxygen. 

Then as if of one mind, they begin to file back through the portal. I can turn my head up and back and see that the sky outside my window is beginning to lighten, daylight is breaking. The shadows in my room are receding and the light on the door grows dim as the last of the hideous beings begins to clamor through. 

This one resembles most closely a huge, lumbering bear with a great, gaping mouth and over-sized teeth that run with saliva. It slathers down his chin and pools in the dirty, tufts of hair that cover is misshapen body. He's been sitting in a small rocker near my bed throughout the ordeal, rocking like a madman.

He turns and looks at me one last time as he disappears through the portal. Suddenly, I am awake. I'm still soaking from the profuse sweating, but I am relieved to be awake. i look around the room and it is exactly as in my dream. The sky outside is growing lighter and in the corner, the rocker is beginning to slow it's maddening pace..