Hello Darkness, My Old Friend

I’m writing the stories on my blog in no specific order, so there will be situations with people that are no longer in my life, whether it be by choice (as in I no longer choose to have them around me), or by force (when one of us reached the end of our journey in this life) .

One of the main people that will have cameos in my stories will be my father. For those that know me in real life, you know my father passed away. For those that knew me prior to his death, you know he was one of the most important people in my life. I did not handle his death well.

I went through all the stages of grief, sometimes I still go through them. I think the death of a loved one is something we never truly get over, we just learn to deal with having a hole in our lives. Because of this, there are random times that the loss will hit us like a ton of bricks, and we feel the loss like it’s fresh and new.

With my dad, the main trigger of emotion was music. He loved all sorts of music, whether it be Beethoven or Fleetwood Mac, Rolling Stones, Dixie Chicks. All of it. He had hundreds of CDs and vinyl records, and always had some kind of sound system set up that he could play anything whenever he wanted.

But I digress.

Sort of.

But my story is short, so it’s all good.

Several months after the death of my father, I was sitting alone in my living room and crying about life and death and everything that was happening. I was 25 at that point (he’d passed away just before my 25^th birthday) and I was getting ready to go to bed. As I was shutting down my laptop, I’d asked out loud for some kind of sign he was at least ok, wherever he was.

Of course there was no answer.

I closed the laptop and went to go shut off the living room lights. As I was walking out the living room door to the kitchen, my laptop started playing music.

I know, I know. I probably left it on, was watching something, and it hadn’t shut down properly. But I hadn’t been watching anything on it (I’d been watching TV), and didn’t have any music on my computer at the time. And even if I did, it wouldn’t have been this.

The song that echoed out of my computer speakers was none other than “The Sound of Silence” by Simon and Garfunkel. The original one, from the 1960’s. If you’re not sure what song that is, you can hear it here.

Of course I did the rational thing and went back to my PC to see if it was on and if it had anything loaded. It was on and had media player loaded, but nothing was in the media player. I closed media player out, and the song continued playing until it was over, at which point my PC continued to shut down.

I did a search the next day and there was no Sound of Silence downloaded anywhere on it.

I don’t have an explanation as to WHY this happened, I can only say I am glad it did. Although that was a really eerie song to play, it was one of my dad’s favourites (I’m Canadian, it’s spelled properly) and it gave me some kind of sense of closure that wherever he was, he WAS OK. And I needed that at that time.

The Scream

I had a significant amount of struggling to decide what story I wanted to write about first. I’ve got an abundance of stories to tell, but this is the first one. The first story I’ll post, the first story to set the mood.

So what better choice than the scariest night of my life, right?

I was 18 at the time, and totally down with hanging with the cool kids (aka the “gutter punks”[aka the “homeless” guys]). My friend (non-gutter punk) and I decided to go to the party another friend (also non-gutter punk) with two friends (gutter punks). The location of the party was out in the middle of nowhere where all the super-rich people who had a shit ton of money had their giant houses built away from each other because even rich people can’t stand to be close neighbours with rich people.

The drive out there required going down a long stretch of road that had a shit ton of trees on the left side, and a shit ton of open field (no mounds, bushes, trees, places to hide) on the right.

There were also no lights of any kind, and the moon was not very bright and the only real light being from the car’s headlights.

The guttermen were in the back seat, I was driving, and my non-gutterman friend was in the front. During the drive, the gents in the back stated they desperately needed to pee, so it made complete sense to pull over since the road was empty as fuck and let them pee on the side of the road.

While we were pulled over, my friend and I were staring out the front chatting while staring out the windshield. Suddenly a man ran across the road in front of us, coming from the left treed area and running towards the field. He had his arms in front of his face and was running in a slightly hunched position. 

He was completely black, like a shadow. As he crossed in front of us, he turned and looked at the car, and his eyes were glowing red.

This was obviously a shadow person. As soon as he’d exited the beam of the headlights, he was gone. Just disappeared. The field to the right was open and you could see a toddler running across it, let alone an adult sized anything. But there was nothing.

The guys got back in the car at that point, and my friend and I had decided not to discuss what we saw, and I DROVE THE FUCK OUT OF THERE SO GODDAMN FAST continued on to my friend’s house.

The party was uneventful, nothing supernatural, nothing scary (other than a whoooole bunch of drunk teenagers) and nothing worth mentioning, so we’ll move on.

That evening (or the next morning, depending, it was about 2am), I was lying in bed trying to fall asleep. The house we lived in was very large and several floors, and the bedroom I chose was the tiny basement bedroom, because it was furthest away from my parents. This is what the layout of the floor my room was on looked like:

I also slept on a futon on the floor under the window, because that’s what the cool kids were doing. Sleeping on futons on the floor.

I digress. I was at that moment of falling asleep, right when you know you are going to fall asleep, but you’re not asleep yet and I heart the most horrifying noise. I heard a child scream. Not just a yell in anger or attention, but a full-on, blood curdling scream of terror. Whoever screamed was so terrified and scared that it broke my heart. Based on the noise, I also knew where they were standing when they screamed. Right here:

My first thought was to immediately get up and run to the child and make sure they were ok, to console them. I started to sit up in bed, and then I remembered. *I* was the only child in the house. And I was 18. My parents were several floors (2) above me and on the opposite side of the house, and the three of us were the only people in the house. I suddenly had a terrifying thought:

Whatever screamed was trying to get me out of the house.

I had a second terrifying thought:

Whatever screamed was IN the house. And it was trying to get me to leave my room.

I lay in my bed, freaking the fuck out. An intense feeling of dread started to smother me. I didn’t move, I barely breathed. I didn’t want whatever was out there to hear me and come in. That’s when I started hearing noises outside my window. It was 2 very distinct “voices” talking to each other, and there was a scratching at my screen window. The voices were not talking in English, or any language I am familiar with. They were talking in what sounded like garbled gibberish, one voice higher than the other. I continued to lay there in complete frozen terror. They couldn’t see me, because I was on the floor on my futon under the window (thank God!).

I finally decided to call someone, so I grabbed my phone. I was about to call my parents and get my dad to come rescue me, but then I realized that whatever was outside my door could easily get either of my parents, should I call for help. I then thought I should call the police. But what would I say to them?

Hey, can you send someone to my house? A child that’s not really a child screamed in my basement and there’s two unknown entities outside my bedroom window scratching at my screen. You’ll be here in 5? K, cool!

Yeah, no. As I continued to debate my situation and what I should do, the fear got to be too much, and I passed out. I awoke a few hours later to the faint rays of the rising sun’s light coming through my window curtains. The dread and fear was gone, so I did what any rational 18 year old girl would do. I grabbed my blanket and pillow and ran up to my parent’s bedroom and curled up in a crying ball on the floor by my mom’s side of the bed and fell asleep, comforted by the knowledge that if there was something in the house, it would stay away if I were in my parent’s room (or eat them first and I could get away…). When my parents woke up, I told them what had happened. My father didn’t believe me (obviously) as he was science based, if he couldn’t see it or touch it, it wasn’t real. He played along however, and went downstairs to look out my bedroom window and check the patio just outside it.

Prior to the events of the previous evening, the spot right outside my window was graced by a Norfolk pine tree in a pot, weighing about 40-50lbs (it was a failed attempt at a “live Christmas tree”). That morning, the pine had been thrown across the balcony and lay just on the other side of the patio door (furthest from my window). My window screen had been pulled off and there were slashes in it. My dad’s logic?

Oh, maybe a raccoon did it!

Because the raccoon folk are known to throw pine trees, rip off window screens, and speak to each other in gibberish languages while doing it.

Needless to say, I did not buy that. And I never slept down there again. I promptly moved back into my old room that was up beside my parent’s bedroom and remained there until I moved out of that house. I’ve never found out what was in our house that night, or what was outside my bedroom window. I’m not sure if I ever want to know, either.

In The Beginning

Yes, I know. I am a very lighthearted and humorous lady. I will continue to be that great and wonderful person and share my crazy exploits here.

This second blog is for the other interests I have, the other experiences I don’t necessarily share with everyone. And also a blog where others can read my stories, and send me yours if you want me to add them to my blog! I will share my own personal stories and experiences as well as stories I know are fact (from people I trust not to lie or make things up), once I have their permission, of course.

I believe in ghosts, shadow people, reincarnation, and quite possibly the Moth Man (I’m still on the fence about that dude…). I will share my experiences, from my favourite (I am Canadian, it’s spelled correctly) to my least loved.

If you have any stories you want to tell, don’t worry! I believe you.