Creepy Story 4.

Heads up, McC and Melanie. Don’t read this one immediately before retiring. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

As a child, I was afraid of being alone in a room after darkness had fallen. I used to go to bed frightened every night, and was allowed to sleep with the light on. I was twelve or thirteen before shame forced me to take my courage in both hands and switch it off.

Things got better quickly. As I moved through my mid teens and into my late teens, the nervousness subsided to almost nothing. But it didn’t disappear altogether. When I was twenty one or twenty two it came back with a vengeance.

I was at a loss to explain it. I was a working man with a young family. Not only did I have somebody else in the room, she was even in the same bed. And yet I suddenly felt the old terror come back, worse than it had ever been as a child. I lay there every night for a couple of weeks, sweating and rigid with fear. I felt that there was something in the house, something dark and terrifying, something that might make an appearance at any minute. One night I heard a clatter downstairs and had to go and investigate. I traced the noise to something that had fallen off a ledge in the box that held the electric meter. There was no obvious reason for the occurrence and it did nothing to allay my terror. My partner was unsympathetic, and I certainly wasn’t going to shame myself further by suggesting that the light might be left on! And so I suffered until sleep overcame me.

One night I woke up in the early hours – or at least, I thought I was awake. I felt fully conscious. But I was at ceiling level, still lying on my back. I turned my head to look at the glass panel over the bedroom door and saw a face looking back at me. I can’t describe it in detail. All I remember was that it was hideous; it had malevolent eyes, and they were staring at me with a manic, evil intent. My worst fear had come to fruition; the ‘ghost’ had appeared.

But then a wave of realisation swept over me. I knew that an evil presence had taken up occupation of the house; I knew that it was only energy and couldn’t do me physical harm; and I knew that it fed off my fear in some way. It was the last one that threw the switch of deliverance. All I had to do was stop fearing it; and so I did. No more night terrors, and I’ve been fine ever since.

I stayed in a loch-side cottage in the Scottish Highlands a few years ago. Just as I was going to sleep, I was startled to feel the bed clothes being pulled downwards around my feet. I had no doubt that something was pulling them. There was no doubt to be had; the sensation was too definite. I decided not to let it worry me, and went to sleep.

So, if my experience in the house in my early twenties was merely a case of night terrors and a simple dream, it was a very useful dream to have.

The next story is more concrete. Two other people saw the same thing I did. And that one did manage to spook me, even if only slightly.