Short Horror Stories

Night Demon

Night Demon

When I was 12 years old we lived in a really old house. It was at least 200 years old and there were rumors that it was haunted. One night, as I was lying in bed, my mother came into my room. At least, I thought it was my mother. The room was dark and the only light was coming from the hallway.

Instead of saying goodnight, she started to tell me a weird and disturbing story about how a demon once came to a 12-year old girl. She said the demon came at night, crawled up next to the girl and began growling in her left ear. She told me the girl said the Lord's Prayer over and over and the demon eventually went away.

I remember just lying there, looking at her and wondering why she was telling me this story. Especially right before I went to sleep. She was really freaking me out.

Eventually, she finished the story and just got up and left without saying anything more. I lay there in the darkness, trying to figure out why my mom would say those things. I tried to put it ot of my mind and concentrated on getting comfortable and falling asleep.

All of a sudden, I heard the most awful noise I have ever heard in my life. It was in my left ear. I couldn't tell if sound was human or animal. It was a glutteral, grating, growling, scratching, screeching, moaning sound that left me terrified. I was too scared to move. I was too scared to breathe. I was paralyzed by fear. I wanted to scream, but I was afraid of what might happen if I did.

At that moment, I thought of the Lord's Prayer and started reciting it in my head. I was too terrified to say anything aloud. The growling continued for what felt like an eternity. Then, suddenly, it stopped. I lay there listening for any other sounds, but all I could hear was an eerie silence. I lay awake all night until the sun came up.

The next morning, I asked my mother about the story she had told me. She claimed she knew nothing about it. She said she had never come into my room the previous night. What she said scared me even more than the growling itself. "That wasn't me," she protested. "Why would I tell you such a horrible story? Why would I scare you like that at bedtime?"

To this day, I still cannot come up with an explanation. I believe that whoever or whatever it was that came into my room that night, it was not my mother. I think it was her doppelganger or a protective spirit disguised as her, trying to warn me of what was about to happen... trying to tell me how to save myself from the demon that was about to come for me...