I Wish It Would Stop

Allow me to introduce myself a bit, seeing as how I'm new here...I'm currently 19, living with my fiancé and my cat and dog. I'm a full-time worker and "house wife" with no children, living in my birth-town of Abilene, Texas. I'm very opinionated and tend to speak my mind, and both my man and I try to rationalize everything we can. Sadly, sometimes it just doesn't work...

My first "paranormal" experience, that I can actually remember and not blame on child imagination, was when I was 11, just after my 10th birthday. We, my mother, father, and myself, moved into my great grandmother's house when I was 7, to help take care of her. I had always slept in the bedroom above the cellar, or in the small bedroom/closet connected to it. Until I was 11. That's when I got the bright idea that, like my brother, who'd moved in with us for a time, I wanted to sleep in the cellar. So we cleaned it up, painted it shallow-pond blue, and moved me in. I drifted back and forth between the cellar and the room above it for about a year because, when I was down there, I had this uncanny feeling that I wasn't alone. Things would happen that I'd dismiss as my imagination or faulty memory; Sounds, movement in the shadows, the feeling of being watched, and things being moved when no one was in the room. When I'd move out, mom and I would here a strange thumping on the floor beneath us, or in the closet room for a couple weeks, then it'd stop. She always told me that I had unlocked something, but I never paid her any mind, thinking she was trying to scare me. Until the last time I moved down there.

I was 12 by this time, and lying in bed one night. I couldn't sleep, and it was very late. I remember turning towards the wall, and my hand hit a hollow spot in the concrete. Then everything got very still. Quiet. This feeling of being in danger came over me, and when I looked towards the foot of my bed, by the door, there was a woman there. She was tall, fey-like, with long, black hair and sapphire eyes, wearing a thin, white, night dress. And she was drenched and angry it was as if I'd disrupted her. For the next two years, when she was around, she'd always be in that same spot, but there'd be another there. A man, taller, but with similar features, dressed in black pants and a white shirt. I came to call him Angeloe, after learning, through the woman herself, that her name was Anne. That's when I learned that I'm able to know a Spirit's name, possible age, and how they died, if they allow me to know. When Anne was near, Angeloe would usually be sitting at the foot of my bed, shaking my leg to wake me or shaking the bed itself. I tried to figure out a natural explanation for it to ease myself, but never could.

Roughly six months before moving to Clyde, Angeloe began to fade, and Anne began to change... I'd be best in explaining her as looking very Grudge-like, save that she crawled on the floor, rather than the walls, and preferred screaming. I've had many experiences with ghosts and such since moving to Clyde, mainly with two children who were killed during the Civil War, and the old Cotton Gin owner (part of the Gin is still on our land in Clyde) whose name was Hank and who hated women. But that's not important as of yet.

Almost 2 years ago now, I lost a pendant that I was given when I was 10. A Tiger's Eye stone that had been in the family for generations. I went to bed one night with it on my bracelet, woke up with it missing. I don't lie when I tell you that I tore my room apart, looking for it. I had everything from stuffed animals and clothes to my bed in the hallway and kitchen, searching. Anne, for some reason, stopped her screaming, mostly, and her hating that next night. I've yet to find my pendant, but Anne's eyes are blue again, as they'd gone red, and she speaks in mostly comprehendible sentences. When she speaks. But something's wrong these days.

Now, to make things clear, I don't see ghosts the way I see this computer or my man. Its mental images. The "mind's eye". But it's different from imagination. It's that sort of "I see it like I would see a memory, but also like its right in front of me" image. It's hard to explain in writing at 4:15am.

Now then, Anne doesn't scare. She never has. She's one of those "Yea though I walk through the Shadow of the Valley of Death, I shall fear no Evil... Cause I'm the baddest (fill in the blank here) on the Block" type people. And yet, things changed when we moved into the house we're in now.

It started simple enough; I was sitting in the living room alone at the computer with the dog when I heard my bedside table drawers slam shut. Just my nerves. And then the back door slammed shut. All the doors were locked... Things popped up here and there for a few months after that. Then one day, while my man was asleep and I was in the living room, the keys by the door fell off the wall, with their sticky hooks. I could pass this off, since sticky hooks don't last long. Save for the fact that his keys landed three feet away and said keys, his hook, and my keys still on their hook, made a perfect right angle. Ok, still could happen. So I set the keys aside and went to take a shower. Needless to say, I wasn't too enthused about a large hand slapping the shower curtain and the cabinet door slamming shut, only to find out that my sleep-all-day fiancé was, well, still asleep. And then, the thing that bothered me most was seeing Anne crawl into the bedroom, looking as though she herself had just seen a ghost, no pun intended, followed by a black smoke that I saw as clearly as I see this screen. It ducked under the door, swirled about, and disappeared. None of the alarms had gone off, and there was no smell or smoke. After that, save for residual effect from a fire, nothing happened. Until about two or three weeks ago.

I was feeling restless, what with my man not being home that night, so I decided I was going to clean the garage. So I set up the radio, pushed my truck into the drive, and proceeded to do just that. I began to have that feeling of being watched, but it wasn't the feeling of Anne's eyes, which I'm quite used to and am now comforted by. And it wasn't the feeling of "human" company. Per usual, I tried to pass it off as nerves. Until my sister (really, ex sister-in-law, but still) got home (she lives across the street with my grandparents) and saw me cleaning. I must've said something that I wouldn't usually say, because she got this strain, though understanding, look and insisted that I tell her if I needed anything. The next few nights were unnerving, though not too unusual.

The third night Levi had been back home, we were lying in bed, and I was trying to relax and go to sleep. So I did what I'd used to do, hoping it would help; I closed my eyes, relaxed my body, and put all my energy into creating an image a golden light seeping from my chest to light the entire room. In my mind, and just as I was starting to doze off, the only thing left unlit was the ceiling and the door. When the light began to touch the door, I felt a push, physically, and saw a figure standing over me. The only thing I had time to make out before I pushed back, more in my mind with the light, was that this figure was tall, shadow-black, with red, slit-pupil eyes. I'm not sure if I was truly that tired, or if I was just that scared, but I passed out. Since then, that feeling of being watched, constantly, hasn't stopped. And last night, it came back. I see it now like I see Anne, but I feel it always. It stands like any normal human, but when it walks, it's very animalistic, crouching, walking on all fours. Naturally, my imagination adds wings and small horns to go with those eyes, though I can't say for certain that it's demonic. Sister seems to think it is. She and her boyfriend seem to think I accidently opened some sort of portal while cleaning the garage.

I went so far as to get out of bed tonight and smudge my bedroom, telling it to go away and that I didn't want it near me. The feeling of it being there just got stronger.

It's currently 4:40, so I've been writing for an hour. So I smudged about an hour and a half ago, and the cat's acting strange again. I'll honestly say it; I hope I'm just crazy.