The Haunting

The Door

My name is Charlie, and I have a confession.

I like to pretend I love a good scary story and that ghosts don't scare me. 

The truth is, they've petrified me ever since I was three years old and my parents moved my sister and me into a new house on November thirteenth - and yes, it was indeed a Friday. 

No one understood why my parents wanted it, but I remember my mom telling me it had so much potential - the potential for what, I had no idea. 

Looking back, I think about the potential my mom thought it had, and all I can think of were the nightmares - both when I was asleep and awake. My dreams haunted me, and the ghosts that roamed the halls beckoned to me, always lingering, never leaving me for a second.

I have a few memories from before our move into the house, and mostly they were normal and pleasant and lacked any of the sinisterness that followed. The only incident even worth mentioning was the summer before we moved, I almost drowned. I remember being under the water, seeing the legs of everyone else in the pool, but not being able to find my way to the surface. I'd grown up with the pool and knew how to swim from an early age, so no one thought anything of it when I first went under the water.

I don't know how long it was before someone realized something was wrong, but the next thing I knew, my aunt was holding me and I was sputtering water.

Maybe this near-death experience is what opened me up to be able to the experiences in the new house - except I it wasn't until we got to the house I remember anything happening. Not to mention, my near-death experience wouldn't account for the encounters other people had in the house.

I remember the first time I saw it. It had been this rundown place, even after my parents had taken care of any of the safety issues before we moved in. I had been petrified of going inside. But it had been raining, and I was getting cold. 

Timidly, I watched as my sister came and went into the house, carrying boxes and various objects to put away. I wanted no part of it. Even going onto the porch gave me goosebumps.

There was something there, watching me, I was sure of it.

Finally, my mom ushered me inside, and I was felt as unimpressed with the inside as I had the outside. The walls were bare, with only traces of the old wallpaper they had been stripping and the floor was made of thin boards that looked as though they hadn't been washed in a decade - even though I knew my mother never would have brought us there to move in if she hadn't thorooughly scrubbed the entire house from top to bottom.

I walked down the hall, barely noticing the living room on my left or the empty room to my right, that would later become my playroom. Not sure where I was going, I continued my journey until I came to the dining room. It was empty of our furniture and all the things I was familiar with. 

It felt cold - the whole house did, and not just because of the chill from the rain.

My father noticed my prancing about the room, and soon realized I needed the bathroom. He ushered me through a doorway that led into a large bathroom with a basin sink and lots of pipes coming up from the floor. 

But there was also a toilet, which I needed pretty bad at that point. 

I sat there, with a door on my left that led out into the large backyard, and a big window in front of me. 

That was one thing that struck me about the house - there were so many windows! They were everywhere. 

When I was done, I went looking for my parents, but was confused when I walked out the door and wasn't in the dining room. 

I had no idea where I was, and I was scared. I ran through a couple more doorways and found myself back in the bathroom. 

But I couldn't figure out where the dining room was!

It turned out there were two doors next to each other in the dining room - one that led into the bathroom, and one that led into my playroom. There was another doorway from the playroom into the bathroom. Somehow, I kept running in circles, all the while crying and screaming. Since my parents had left the dining room, I had been confused about where I was and just kept going in the loop. 

Even after my mom came in the room, and stood there watching me, I kept going. By that point, I had myself working into such a frenzy, I couldn't calm myself down. Eventually, my mom reached over and grabbed hold of my arm right before I went back into the bathroom.

While I'm not certain I can chalk that introduction to the house as paranormal, it should have been a clue to everyone that the craziness was just beginning. 

Thankfully, they decided to sheetrock over the doorway leading from the dining room into the bathroom, and just left the one leading into the playroom, where you could enter the bathroom from there.

________

A/: I know this isn't exactly supernatural, or paranormal, but it's just to set up how things started in this house for Charlie. From the day she moved in, even at such a young age, she knew something was wrong there. 

I promise if you stick with it, you'll get some spine tingles.

Thanks so much. Remember to vote, add the story to your public reading lists, and I'd love to hear your comments as you go through reading it.