char *(null)="
dark.shadow
dark.shadow
When I was growing up in West Texas (Ranger, Texas) I lived in
the house that my Grandfather had built. Both my Grandfather and
Grandmother had died in the house. The house was built in 1903,
and is still there. My Great-grandfather was one of the original
settlers in the area. This was a few years after the Civil War.
He had surveyed the area right after the Civil War.
The house had a down stairs area and was originally heated by
three fire places. The upstairs had a finished room and then the
rest of the attic was unfinished. The unfinished part was access
by a regular door. The upstairs room had a closet and in general
could be lived in. When I was about in the 5th or 6th grade my
Dad revamped the upstairs room and built in a bookcase so I could
have my own room. I moved to that room then. The stairs to my
room were inclosed like a tunnel. The stairs went up to a
landing, then turned left and went to the top landing. Then to
the left of the top landing was the door to my room. There was
another access door to the right of the top landing to another
part of the attic. This had the effect of isolating the upstairs
room from the rest of the house. There was a large dormor with
three windows. That is were my bed sat in my room.
The old house had a roof that was very high peaked and
convoluted, so the attic had several accesses and many nooks and
crannies. The part just off my room was filled with junk and
trunks full of old stuff (some of which I wish I had now, but
that is another story). My Grandfather had planted several trees
out front, and the only one that had lived was a very large
Sycamore that draped over the house (Last time I was there it was
still there. Planted in 1903-1904). The shadows from the tree
fell on my windows at night, and the tree scratched the house
sometimes when the wind blew.
My father had lived in the house all his life, and when he got
married my Grandmother was dead, and my Grandfather died soon
after than. Then soon after that I came along.
The only extra-ordinary thing that happened was the at night and
sometimes in the daytime the stairs would creak and pop like
someone was coming down the stairs and then the floor in the
living room would creak like someone was walking across the floor
(pier and beam foundation). We always attributed that to house
cooling off etc. Sometimes a rocking chair in the living room
would slightly rock. We always atributed this to air currents (My
Aunt ended up with this chair. While visiting her one time I idly
rocked this chair with my hand while it was empty. She became
very disturbed and she explained that it was very bad luck to
rock an empty chair. No other explaination was given). The room
was never really dark as there was a streetlight on the corner
that came through the windows. The door that went to the other
part of the attic had a glass panel with white curtains on it.
There was a window in that part of the attic and the light from a
street light on the other corner would shine through this window.
This window, in this part of the attic, faced North. The windows
by my bed faced South.
This was about the extent of the creepiness until I was in the
8th grade. In January or February of my 8th grade year my Father
was transferred to Athens, Texas. He went to live in a motel and
we stayed until school was out. This is when a some things
started happening. Before the noises of the house didn't wake me
or cause me any concern. I started waking up in the night for no
reason at all and usually there would be a smoky vapor in the
air. Not uniform like fog, but wispy like cirrus clouds. I could
see it in the light that came through the window that faced
North. This begin to spook me a little.
Then, one night, I woke up in the night and there was a shadow on
the curtains on the door to the attic. Like someone was standing
on the other side of the door and the light was at their back.
Shadow of a person. I turned on the lights and checked out the
attic with my flashlight. Found nothing to which I could
attribute the shadow. Turned off the lights and the shadow was
not there. Just a clear panel of light on the curtains. This
happened several times. After that I started sleeping with a gun
(West Texas in the late 1940's). One night, I let the "thing"
have it with an old 38 pistol. Three shots through the door.
Nothing on the other side of the door. The bullets lodged into an
old chair. The other thing that made the hair on my neck stand on
end was that my Mother and Sister didn't even wake up with all
that noise.
I got a lot of kidding from my friends, and a chewing out by my
folks, but after that, until we moved, I slept on a cot
downstairs in the Living Room.
Mike Dean
Michael (Mike) C. Dean
IBM - RISC/6000 Division
---#STONEFREE
Brought to you by Stone Free BBS -- 606.885.1715
Fido: 1:2370/69
Sysop: Chef Groovy/FaTSacK