Monster With Hammer

I don't really believe in supernatural stuff, but I had an experience when I was very young and I have never been able to explain it.

I was about 4 years old. My sister and I shared a bedroom. Every night I would wake up and hear what sounded like hammering coming from the other room. I didn't bother to tell anyone because no one else could hear it and I knew no one would believe me. I would be very frightened and go and ask to sleep with my Mom and Dad, whose bedroom was just a couple of doors down the hall.

Even when we went on vacation and were staying in a beach house, I could hear the hammering, so it was like it was following me. It wasn't attached to the house - it was attached to me. It was terrifying, and as a frightened little girl, there is no way I would go and investigate it.

One night when I heard it I went in to the hallway to make my way to my Mom and Dad's room, and as I put my hand on the doorknob I looked back down the hall, in the general direction of the hammering noise. There was a huge, horned, faceless black and white monster standing there with a hammer. I screamed and collapsed. My Mom came out and scooped me up and then I was OK.

The weirdest thing is that after that night I never again heard the hammering. Another weird thing is that I found out later that my sister had also been hearing the noises and also had not said anything. She was telling me about this later in life and I asked if she had heard me scream, and she said yes, that at the time she figured the "Big, Bad Wolf" had gotten me. It must have been scary for her too.

Nothing that dramatic has happened to me since, but I have heard footsteps in the hall when no one is there. When we got older, my sister and I had separate rooms at opposite ends of a shared hallway. It was just us upstairs. I would periodically hear footsteps in the hallway, and when I asked my sib if she had heard them, she would irately deny it. The thing is, I know she heard them too because one night when I was lying awake listening to the footsteps, my sister called my name, because she thought it was me wandering around in the hallway. She denies it, but I know she heard it, because that's why she called to me. We lived in a new house and as far as I know, nothing bad ever happened in it because we were the first owners!

Any comments or theories about these incidents would be appreciated, especially if you have had a similar one.