Pershing Ave

My name is Sari and this is the story of the house I used to live in.

Growing up, my family and I had always lived in apartments and town homes, so when my younger brother and I found out our parents were going to try and buy a house, we were over the moon.

We looked at probably 50 houses, none of them were right, either they were over my parents budget of 80, 000 or they were way too small, broken down or just disgustingly filthy. Until one day our realtors took us to see a house near mine and my brother's favorite park.

We all loved the house, it was a beautiful two story white house with green shutters, a screened in porch and a huge pine tree in the front. As soon as we walked in we knew this was it. This was our house, so my parents put an offer on it and we waited to hear back from the bank, my mom and I sat around the living room of the town house we rented and talked about what colors I wanted to paint my room, and all things she wanted to do to the house. The next day we heard the bank accepted our offer and we were so happy. Until the loan fell through (that should have been sign number one right there) and my parents did everything they could to get that house, but at every turn something else stood in the way of us getting that house.

The windows all needed replaced, so my parents found a company that agreed to put In new windows if we signed a paper saying we would not move out for 5 years. Then the chimney needed replaced, so my dad tapped into his pension to get the money to fix it. Finally after 2 months and a very long list of problems we moved into our new house the day before my 14th birthday. I could not have asked for a better present.

The next day my cousin Amanda and I were exploring the neighborhood, we walked down the alley behind my new house and found two young guys jumping on a trampoline, they stopped jumping when they saw us and came out to say hi. Their names were Josh and Isaac, Josh was a handsome 15 year old black boy and Isaac who was 13, looked like he had some native American in him. Isaac and I became best friends almost over night, we both loved anime, Manga and we both drew very well. I had never had a better friend. That night my parents surprised me and my brother with a gift, it was a 6 weeks old, 4 lb baby husky puppy. We decided to name him Kojak.

Soon after we moved in, I noticed that something weird kept happening, the basement door would open and slowly swing shut on its own. Now of course my mother said it was an old house and it was opening because the air vent was right in front of it, and it was the air pushing it. The problem with that was it would open when the heater wasn't even on. Then things started to go missing, pens, pencils, hair things, tools, batteries. I didn't know what was going on, but I tried to figure it out logically, maybe my step dad or brother had just misplaced them or just simple forgetfulness.

One Thursday my mother went out grocery shopping, she had been gone about 10 minutes when Isaac came to the door, we had to sneak him over while mom was gone or else we couldn't see him. Because for some reason mom had developed a severe hatred for Isaac, we had no clue why, she had loved him at first.

"Hey, you guys want to come over?" Isaac asked. "Aaron can" I said " but I'll have to stay here and wait for her phone call, so I know when to call Aaron home." "This really sucks" he said as he kicked a rock that was on our back porch. My brother left with Isaac and I decided to catch up on my reading, so I grabbed a Manga and got comfy on the couch with my book and a soda. In the quiet of the house I heard a very strange sound, walking... Actual footsteps above my head.

It must be Kojak I thought, but when I looked up from my book I saw my dog sleeping soundly under the dining room table... Then a door upstairs slammed suddenly. I freaked out; terrified that someone might have broken in from a window upstairs. So I gathered my courage and a broom and went upstairs to check it out. No one was there... All the windows were shut and the burglar catches out. I tried to shove it out of my memory, "it was just your imagination" I told myself

Soon after I had heard the walking, I began to have severe nightmares, even my dog started having them, and he'd twitch and cry and howl like he was in pain. Emotions ran rampant and we all became extremely angry at everything all the time. We'd scream at each other, my parents would get in fights that would end in my step dad leaving, only to come back later saying he was sorry, and he didn't know why he had said those things. There wasn't a night when I didn't cry myself to sleep. One day I hadn't been feeling well and took a nap, when I woke up I found out my brother had taken my dog out for a walk and he had accidentally left go of the leash. I got angry and started to get really hot, my face turned red I could feel it burning. And when I calmed down, my brother was standing a few feet from me with a shocked looked on his face, owww my hands hurt really badly. "Sari" he said "you just punched the wall." I looked up at the wall and sure enough there were two sari sized fist holes in the wall and my knuckles were bleeding.

One day I was in my bedroom on the family laptop watching some videos, when I heard my mom yell up to me to come down there now. I freaked out, and erased the history as quickly as I could, and ran to the bathroom to wash my hands calling to her saying I just needed to pee first. As I washed, I heard the phone in my brother's room ring, my brother answered and said "hi mom" I went stiff for a moment... Then my brother opened his door and said "sari, mom said she'll be home in 5 minutes, should I put Koko in your room?" cold shivers ran down my spine. What or who just called to me?

Hearing my name being whispered or called didn't stop, in fact it began happening to my brother, Isaac and my only girlfriend Kristina. It was uncomfortable in the whole house, I constantly felt as if there was someone watching me or standing just behind me.

One night in October my parents were going out to celebrate their wedding anniversary and Aaron was going to Isaacs to stay the night. So I had Kristina over, she got to my house about 4 or 5 and we hid up in my room until my parents left. We went downstairs and got on the laptop, blasted some music and talked. Soon we got hungry and decided to put in the pizza my mom had bought for us, I threw away the plastic and the basement door opened like all ways, so I shut it and went back to the stove where Kristina was standing, when the basement door opened again, only this time it opened very quickly. Like someone had been on the other side and pushed it. It then proceeded to shut very slowly. We turned to each other eyes wide, mouths agape. "What the heck was that?" Kristina whispered. "Oh the door does that all the ti..."

Before I could finish saying time we both heard running/stomping sounds on the stairs, "Koko" I called, we held each others hands and looked over into the dinning room to see Koko sleeping next to the window. Then a door upstairs slammed, hard. Kristina and I were terrified and we ran into the living room where we turned on the TV to drown out noises and hid under a legolas blanket.

Eating helped us settle down and soon we weren't thinking about the sounds we heard. "Dude" I said "I have to shower" "why not use the tub?" Kristina asked "it's not working right now, mom thinks its leaking." I said and punctuated my words with an eye roll. So down to the basement we went; now I had said it was uncomfortable in the house but it was about 50 times worse in the basement. Dark, freezing cold and scary like someone was standing in the shadows, waiting, watching.

It just so happens that, that night Kristina saw something horrible that to this day still gives her nightmares. I was in the shower, (or rather under a shower head that been roped off with 4 shower curtains) just talking to Kristina who was sitting on the dryer playing with her DSI. She had decided she was going to be mean and ambush me in the shower; she looked up with an evil grin on her face, that's when she saw it. In the back of the room stood a figure of a man in a hat, tall and made of thick black mist that was solid in the middle and got lighter around the edges. She tried to refocus her eyes but when she did the shadow man disappeared. It was then I heard her half whisper "what was that?" I had heard what she said very clearly but asked her what she said anyways. "Oh nothing hun!" she said, she sounded a bit panicky but I just decided if she wanted to tell me she would.

After the sighting of the shadow man the weird things started happening more often and more violently. Doors that were locked would rattle like someone was trying to open them, my brother and I started having weird chest pains, I began to have panic attacks and his heart would hurt, we both would have very hard time breathing, he said it felt like he had asthma. We'd wake up with random bruises that weren't there when we went to sleep. My brother would wake up with huge scratches on his back and stomach and chest, all ways in rows of three. One night I awoke screaming in pain rolling around but unable to sit up, my mom came running in and had to violently shake and rub me to get me to stop screaming, as soon as it started it stopped and I rolled over and was asleep again in seconds. The only way I even knew it had happened was because my mom had told me the next morning.

One afternoon I was washing dishes and picked up a huge chopping knife. When out of no where a voice told me to slit my wrists, I remember thinking "what in the world... Why did that thought come to my head?" I got very hot and my vision went blurry. I blinked away the blurriness and saw that I had the knife on my wrist. I dropped it, dried my hands and told my mom I just could not wash another dish.

In the spring of 2010, my mom let me rescue a young female cat that my little cousin had saved from drowning. I loved her! She was a little amber tabby no older then 6 months. I named her Shade after Shade the Echidna on Sonic. She would sit there sound asleep then open her eyes suddenly and stare off into corners. One time she hissed at a corner and ran behind the couch. Kojak would do the same, sometimes he'd begin to growl in the direction of the basement/kitchen.

Anytime I was able to get out of that house was time well spent? But the minute I'd go home there it was again. The feeling of despair, anger, hatred and bone chilling loneliness.

The other day Kristina and I walked over to my old house to go ghost hunting, but sadly the house is being renovated and we were chased off the property. On the walk home I looked back at the house to see a black figure move in front of the window into the darkness if the closet space.

We lost that house almost a year ago, and renovations just started less then a month ago, so it sat empty that whole time. But Isaac who still lives behind that house with his dad tells me that he still sees lights go off and on, the shades get drawn and he can see something walking past the windows. Just thinking about that house makes me feel ill.

Now I'm very proud to say that since we moved all the weird things have stopped. And I do not feel anything following or watching me.

I wonder what was going on in that house. I guess I'll never know.