The Knocking at the Door

From: PEARL NESTOR (asapprnt@alaska.net)
Story type: Ghost
Location: Anchorage, Alaska
Source: Form Submission

I have recently moved from my apartment after living there going on 11 years. During the whole time I have been there I have had knocking at my door early in the morning , usually around 5 or 6 AM in the morning. I would get up to answer it and no one would be there.

This continued on for some years and I always tried to explain it away by thinking it was kids playing a prank or next door neighbors who used to party hardy into the night, wanting a cigarette and darting back to next door, or perhaps I was just coming out of sleep and just dreaming. My apt. was the last one down from the fence entrance and even if I were a little late in answering the door I should have been able to catch them before they got to the gate.

Strange things started happening also, mainly things disapearing. Usually kitchen things, a new garlic press I only got to use once, a cheese grater I had for years -gone.

One time my brother who loves Kool-Aid came over and looked for the picture, it was no where to be found. We took everything out of the cabinets and it was no where to be found. The next day I came home and I found him making Kool-Aid out the picture we were looking for, I asked him where he found it and he said it was right in the cabinet when he opened it up. I told him that was impossible because we took everything out of there to look for it. He said it was strange, but there it was when he opened the cabinet. I lived alone with no roommates to move things around or take them so it's always been a mystery why things end up missing and later reappear.

The one time, I knew it (the knocking) wasn't a dream or a prank was when my older brother John stayed overnight. This is an efficency apt, so I keep several sleeping bags if someone wants to spend the night. It was around 4:30 on a cold December morning and it had just snowed. Someone was rapping urgently and loudly at the door, just like it always happens. I asked my brother to answer the door and see who it was. Of course he was totally amazed to find no one there. It also had just snowed and there were no footprints in the newly fallen snow. My brother just kept asking over and over again how that could be. But I told him how happy I was that someone was with me when it did happen, he was further amazed to learn that I had this happen for years.

Other things would happen also, like strange shadows on the wall, my cat would stalk something or just sit by the door and stare at something I couldn't see. Things too numerous to detail.

After all this time though, I never had a bad feeling about living there, it just got annoying after a while replacing some of my lost things. To this day I have no idea what or who it was. Perhaps a former tenant? Was I inviting whoever or whatever into my house by opening my door? But this was by far the most interesting thing that has ever happened to me . Thanks for letting me share my story. Sincerely, Pearl J. Nestor