The Black Shadows

From: 
Story type: Ghost
Location: My childhood house
Source: Form Submission

When I was five I lived in an oldish house. It was more than twenty but less than thirty years old. I had a room in the basement ever since I could remember. But when I was nine-years-old weird stuff started to happen in there.

First it started out as simple as the sound of the chain being smacked against the bulb in my closet, it was a walk in. I would always hear it when there was complete silence around midnight. If my TV was on then it would go off and the sound would be louder, more fierce. Whenever I heard it my body would go cold, I had three warm blankets on my bed. I would hide under my covers and wait to feel better, most of the time I would sing church songs to myself until I felt safe. Then I would fall asleep.

Then around ten-years-old I heard the chain hit the bulb and I had had it. I sat up looked into the closet, a curtain acted as the door, and said. "In the name of God the father, Jesus the son, and the Holy Ghost I command you to leave!"

I don't think it liked it because the curtain fell, no, was pulled down to the floor and something stared at me from in there. My body went numb. I had to gasp for air as it came at me. The room was pretty big, it took me at least three seconds to get from one side to the other, but this thing flew across it in under a second my eyes didn't register it came at me until those red eyes stared at me. It felt evil. I was so scared I felt calm. Then I saw images of a man where my TV was with a knife of some sort in his throat. He laughed silently as he sat down on the floor blood pouring onto the ground. He kept laughing until he went limp.

I woke up the next day in my bed cold sweat drenched my bed covers. I could not have had dreamt it up. I was physically drained. I could not move my body until after school that day. I turned to look at the closet and the thumbtacks that held up the curtain had popped out, some made it to the side of my bed, and the curtain itself lay on the ground and had a foot print on it. It was human but inhuman at the same time.

I had dad bless the room and me. I felt better but I moved out of the room that same day. I moved to a much smaller room on the main floor until we moved out of the house and never saw that black shapeless shadow whatever again.

Around the time I turned twelve I started to see little black shadows moving on the main floor, four I saw at one time. When they past something it would act like a small breeze blew by. They had the shape of five to seven-year-olds. No one else in my family noticed they were there. The black shadows ignored them also. Whenever they went past me they bowed politely. I nodded at them and they would continue. Once I saw one get near the stairs to the basement and it froze. It seemed scared of the basement, then suddenly I felt the presence of the first shadow but never saw it. The black shadow ran from the stairs through the kitchen and back into the living room and disappeared. I believe that they were ghosts of children. They would run and play every once in a while. I only saw them a total of five or six times my whole life.

Now I live in a house built for us. I don't see or sense any spirits here and I'm very happy.