Real Encounters

*Horrifying Thanksgiving*

One year my entire family got together for Thanksgiving at a relative's house in Arizona. Because it was a small house, a lot of us had to camp out on the floor; so my brother and I were sleeping on the floor in the TV room. The rest of the adults and the "girls" (My aunt runs a group home for mentally disabled women. They're like a part of the family. Most of them are over 50 years old, but under 5 mentally) were in other rooms. I remember waking up thinking I heard scratching noises. As I lay there in the darkness, the noises became obvious. They seemed to transition from scratching to shuffling, to harsh scraping, moving around the periphery of the small room. I thought one of the dogs had somehow got in, so I wasn't too terrified at first. But I noticed the breathing didn't sound like a dog at all. Nor did it really sound human. I could feel tugging on the blankets near my feet. This was about the time my brother woke up and screamed. About 4 seconds later my mom and aunt burst into the room and turned the lights on. One of my aunt's "girls" was huddled in the corner like some kind of animal. When the lights came on she made this half-scream-half-growl-half-hiss and bolted from the room, still on all fours. I have never seen a 60+year old woman in a nightgown move that way. She left behind scratch marks where she had been "digging" in the hardwood floor.