The Grinning Man

I'll get the miscellaneous information out of the way first:

My soon-to-be husband and I moved into our current residence approximately one year ago. So far as I know, there was only one previous family who called this house their home and nothing sinister has ever taken place on the premise. The house is a newer construct in a quiet residential neighbourhood. Though I am not a sceptic, I have never had to deal with anything paranormal. The past couple weeks have definitely been a new experience for me.

Two weeks ago, I thought I heard a voice while I was sleeping. Asking my boyfriend if he'd said anything, I got no response. As he was obviously sound asleep, I decided I was dreaming and rolled over towards the closet (which is situated behind my bedroom door, which always remains closed). Though I considered getting up and drinking a glass of water, I stopped moving when I saw a fuzzy white form near the closet door. A sweater that I have hanging there moved as it passed underneath it. Within moments, the shape had disappeared. Confused but not scared or concerned, I convinced myself I was dreaming and went back to sleep.

After that night, I have been consistently waking up between 3AM and 4AM. Sometimes, it is because of noises. Other times, the room just doesn't feel quite...right. Three nights after first seeing the fuzzy shape, I woke up to the sound of something falling or someone stumbling-at least that's how it sounded to me. In the same place as the previous 'sighting', I saw the shape of a tall man. He was shadowy and seemed oddly formed. Slightly frightened this time, I turned to press my face against my boyfriend's back (he did not wake up at all) and urged myself back to sleep.

Four nights ago, after continuing the pattern of waking up between 3-4AM, I was startled awake because the temperature plummeted in my normally hot room. Though it is usually humid enough in the bedroom so that I can't sleep without an industrial fan blowing at full strength, and though it is the middle of summer, the temperature became absolutely frigid. I was shivering and my skin was cold to the touch.

Upon opening my eyes, I saw what I assumed was the same man, better formed this time and wearing a grin that set my heart pounding like crazy. Amusing as it is to me now; I jumped up and tried to punch him. He vanished at once. For a long time after, I shivered and my heart raced. I was much more scared this time because even though I actively tried awakening him by poking and speaking to him, my boyfriend did not wake up. Because this is unusual for him, and because it was now the third time he hadn't awakened to help relieve my fear, the emotion grew until I was ready to cry. I planned to stay awake until the sun rose, but exhaustion eventually won out over fear and I slept.

After that night, I finally talked to a few close friends about the nocturnal happenings. The first person I spoke with was my husband-to-be, who engaged in a long conversation with me about theories, possibilities and things we could try to do. He was curious about the fact that I said he seemed to be in a deeper sleep than usual when this went on because normally, he will wake up if I leave the bed or say something. I immediately felt better-the conversation loosened a knot of nerves I hadn't been aware of.

The next day (after having that first talk) I was online at work, talking to a friend on my laptop computer. We were discussing what had been happening and I told him I was going to start looking up who the man could be, what he wanted, etc. With as little information as I had, however, I wasn't feeling confident I would find anything on him. My friend suggested "shadow people" because I implied that the first two times I saw him, he was shadowy and not fully formed. As I was about to reply that the third time, he was fully formed and not like a shadow at all, the temperature dropped and my computer keeled over. It was plugged into the wall, no 'low battery' warning came up and it did not overheat (I keep it propped on a store-bought stand that prevents overheating, and when I touched the bottom, thinking that was the cause, it was cool to the touch).

Now I work alone in a small drive-thru store that is perpetually five to twenty degrees warmer than the outside air. Unless I walk into the cooler, it just doesn't get cold in there. I felt like a drop of ice water slid down my spine and I quickly turned my computer back on (started up perfectly, no problems) and logged back online. What disturbed me most was when I got back into conversation with my friend, the first thing he said was "Sorry for disappearing on you-my computer completely flat lined. Thought it was a power outage at first but nothing else was affected. It was kind of weird." Yes, and even more weird that the same thing happened to me thousands of miles away at the same time...

With as unimpressive as these occurrences are, I have been willing to pass them off as dreams, imagination, coincidences, etc. The only things I keep coming back to that convince me maybe I'm not just imagining things are the temperature drops in places that are consistently uncomfortably warm, the strangely malfunctioning computer (s) and the sheer burst of uninhibited terror I felt when he smiled at me. I know that doesn't seem like that should be the biggest thing here, but it is the point I keep coming back to, in my mind and when I speak with any of my friends about it. I almost don't care why he's hanging around, but the intimidating leer of The Grinning Man haunts my thoughts now, even while I'm awake.