It Will Always Be My Room

My parents made the decision to start a new business during my sophomore year. Over the summer, we picked up and moved. It was only 40 miles away from the town I grew up in, but as a teenager, it might as well have been 300 miles.

We had a unique situation under which we bought our new home. The owner, a divorced mother of two could no longer afford the mortgage being newly single. We were looking to move up in size from our smaller home where I lived. We bought their house and they bought ours. We went to the house several times before it closed. I met the kids, Eric who was 12 and Laura, who was 14. Eric was a normal kid, Laura, however, was the epitome of the angry teenager who lashed out at anyone for any reason. Being angry at her mother for the divorce, she had no shame in calling her mother names in front of us. I recall going upstairs in the home which was a tri-level and having her show me her bedroom. She took me in the room and as I was looking around, she stated very rudely, "This may be where you end up sleeping, but it will always be my room."

On her family's visit to our home, I walked her around our neighborhood just to show her the surroundings. As it was always with Laura, she did nothing but note her distaste for the area, calling it "podunk" and saying she already hated it there. I told her I didn't want to move either, but it is just the way it was.

Seven months passed in our new home and I had settled in nicely at school, making friends and getting a job, and had a boyfriend. My boyfriend and I liked to go to area lakes on the weekends and so we went to a small lake about 20 miles from home. We were having a great time and then it started raining heavily. We quickly packed up and headed back to the main road, which at the time was just a two lane road with partially functioning red lights. We had only gone a few miles when the traffic came to a dead stop and the sirens started going by and emergency vehicles began arriving. There had been a horrible wreck and we were only a few cars back from the scene that had happened minutes earlier. A small red pickup had run a red light and a larger pickup had plowed into them going 55 mph. The wreckage was horrific. Even worse, right next to me in the passenger side, several men were taking photos of something in a ditch. I knew I shouldn't look, but curiousity got the best of me and I looked. I was horrified to see the top of a girls skull with long brown hair. Needless to say, once I got home I was frantic and distraught. I told my mother. That night, I barely slept. The next morning, my mother came in and told me it was Laura who was killed in that accident. I was shocked.

After the funeral, things seemed to be getting back to normal. A month or so had passed and I was beginning to let go of the trauma that I had seen that day. Then it began. I went to sleep one night and was suddenly awakened. I felt a presence in the room. At the time, I had a day bed, and I was facing the wall. I felt something laying beside my bed, the full length of the bed. I could tell it was there by the change in sound in the space. I was convinced there was a casket next to my bed. Thinking I must be crazy, I refused to turn over and look. Instead, I laid there in fear for hours until I must have been too exhausted to stay awake anymore. The next morning, I was tempted to tell my mother what happened, but chose not to as I was convinced she would tell me I was crazy and haul me off to a shrink.

Smaller things began to happen, and I was always questioning if I was crazy. Someone would be behind me going up the stairs every time I would go. The lights in several rooms would go on and off by themselves. The garage door would sound like it was opening when it never moved. (my bedroom was directly above the garage, and would vibrate when the door was opened or closed) Doors slammed on their own and windows would open on their own. Drinking glasses would shatter into a million pieces in my hand. Items I left on a table or counter would disappear for hours on end and then suddenly reappear. My dog would sit up in the bed and bark towards a corner in the room at night. I was terrified to be in this house and felt alone because I was convinced I couldn't tell anyone.

A male friend came to my home one day and we were getting ready to go to local festivities at a river park in the city. While I was getting ready, he played with the dog. When I came back in the room, he bluntly told me "There is someone here with us, I feel them, I want to leave." And leave we did. QUICKLY. I then told him about my experiences.

The most terrifying experience was when a guy who I had briefly dated showed up one night. He was very pushy and clingy and I really didn't want to see him. I let him in though and talked to him for a few minutes and then gave several verbal cues that he needed to go. He didn't take notice, so I decided that I would go upstairs and take a shower. I figured the rudeness of me retreating would convince him to leave. He didn't however. When I came back downstairs, I found him in the middle of the living room floor mopping up a glass of water he had spilled. He seemed shaken and also angry with me. He said "Why did you not answer me when you were in the hallway?" He was referring to the foyer right outside the living room. The home was tri-level with the kitchen being on the bottom floor. I told him I had no idea what he was talking about. He then told me that I seemed to be playing with him when I was in the hallway--he told me he saw me, but I was flitting and hiding as he tried to look for me. He said I moved through the hallway back and forth and seemed to disappear. When he couldn't stop me, he said I suddenly was behind him at the back of the couch and I scared him and caused him to drop his glass. When I told him I had been upstairs the whole time, he looked terrified. He finally left. Needless to say, right after he left, so did I. I wasn't staying there.

This went on for several years and while I somewhat got used to it, I hated it. I never liked the little things that happened around the house that made me feel like I was unwelcome. Years later, my mother and I began talking about some of the things that happened. I finally confided in her what was going on, and she said she felt horrible because she knew Laura was taunting me. She had seen her a couple of times and even told her to leave because she was scaring me. My mother had experienced many of the same things. Neither of us had been successful in getting her to pass on.

That experience solidified my thoughts on the paranormal. I wasn't sure I believed in it before, but I definitely did after living in that house. She never let up letting me know that my bedroom was in fact, HER room and always would be.