As I was being babysat by an older cousin in Taylor, Michigan, something strange happened. I was sitting with my cousin on the couch and my uncle was sitting in the chair. He had got up to go in his room and we continued to watch TV.
While I was curled up with her on the couch, I watched the basement door open. I heard two thuds noises and I jumped. My cousin looked at me asking if I was ok. I just nodded and kept staring in the direction of the basement. She kept asking me what was over there that I was looking at and I said "nothing". I watched a man crawl from the basement to near where we were. He had a brown leather coat on, smelled horrible and a skeleton face. When he got closer, he kept staring at me, just moving his head side to side as if trying to make up his mind about something. I came unglued. I started to scream and yell and I jumped up on my cousin. My Uncle came out of his room. "What's going on?!" I told them and they couldn't see this thing.
Whatever it was started to crawl back to the basement but disintegrated before the door. I never liked that house after that. Oddly enough, that whole side of my family has passed away now. All five of them; within a year or two of each other. I still think whatever it was that I seen way back then is part of the reason they are not with us today and for things that have happened to the rest of us since then.
I often played with said imaginary friends for as far back as I could remember. My mother would get so annoyed with this that I found myself sitting in my room, being punished for my "antics". That was until my little brother started to do it too.
We lived in Westland, Michigan at the time. I was all of 7 years old and he was 5. I started to have night terrors a few years prior. Sometimes the dreams felt so real, I could smell odors, feel a breath on my neck, feel pain from being hit or falling. Or be extremely tired from running in my dreams. But they were very consistent, always hiding from two men in the woods, wearing period clothing. They said they would always find me... A few years later, I suppose they did.
Many times, my brother would wake up with a bad dream and come into my room to sleep. On one occasion, we both got up to get a drink of water. We walked down the hallway and right at the corner where the living room met the kitchen. We BOTH saw this elderly woman sitting in this rocking chair. Knowing it was 2 in the morning, and she looked similar to my grandmother, I asked, "Mammaw? What are you doing here?" My brother chimed in, "Yeah Mammaw? When did you get here?" The woman replied, "Babies, I'm not your mammaw, but ya'll go get your drink and head on back to bed..." We just stood there confused for a minute and got our drink. When we went to head back to bed, she was gone.
Come morning at breakfast, we riddled my mother to death with questions. "Where's mammaw? We saw her last night... Why isn't she having breakfast with us?!" My mom kept saying she wasn't here and she didn't know what we were talking about. We kept pressing the issue that we seen her and she said "I didn't know what kind of game you two are playing but you too better knock it off and get ready for school."
A couple months later, the night terrors started up again. Waking up terrified, screaming so loud that the neighbors heard me. They wouldn't stop. Many nights I sat up in bed, afraid to sleep because I knew what I would see. Well, that didn't stop the shadow man.
Once again, my brother had come into my room to sleep. I always had the nightlight on near the foot of the bed. Trying to go back to sleep, I heard this rustling noise outside my door. I peered over my covers and seen the doorknob move. Thinking it might have been my mom to check on us, I pulled the covers up a bit. I heard the door open and slow footsteps. Heavier, they were not of my mothers. With each squeak of the wooden floor, I knew who ever it was, was getting closer. I looked up at the wall near my head and I seen the silhouette of a man. He was slowly making his way to the foot of my bed. Frozen in fear, I couldn't move. I just listened to the floor creaking as he crept closer... Once he was at the foot of my bed, I felt the bed bump. I was terrified. Thinking about my little brother, I knew I had to face my fear. Then I felt the man put his hand down on the bed between my feet and the bed compress downward as if he was leaning in. I swung the covers off of me and stood up yelling "GO AWAY!"
There was no one there.
The house was quiet for a few years after that and the night terrors stopped. I never liked going into the basement. I was a normal basement and at normal view, nothing seemed out of the usual. But it always had this feeling like I was being watched. I started to hear a man whispering from time to time when I would grab laundry for my mom. Thinking it may have been my Dad home early from work; I would grab the clothes and go back upstairs to my mom asking where he was. She'd always say "you know he's at work..."
The night terrors started again. They became extremely violent. I started to see things in my dreams that children of that age or adults for that matter had no business seeing or even knowing about. So vivid that I could smell the copper scent of blood that I'd find myself walking in during the dream.
The shadow man was back.
During that time, I had discovered I was a bit of an artist. An art teacher had taken particular interest in me and was helping me develop my talent. First rule she told me, "Always draw what you see." Second rule, "always detail the specifics, make it real, shade the detail well."
As the dreams started to get more and more vivid, I started to draw them out looking for a reason as to why I was seeing these things. Maybe I was missing something. Maybe there was a pattern. I always dated and put the time down when I had the dreams on the pictures. I did this until the last incident with the shadow man.
On that night, I heard noises coming from the living room. I crept up to the doorway and peered down the hallway. It sounded like the scooting, and crinkling noises were getting louder. I could see this man near our entertainment center. He was picking up the picture frames my mom had of us and putting them in a garbage bag. Thinking it was a burglar at first, I yelled "HEY!" And when the man turned around, all I could see was a black, misty body and red eyes. He said "I have all of you now." I screamed for my Dad and ran to my bed. My Dad jumped up and ran around the house looking for this man.
He was gone.
Shortly after that incident, we moved into a newly built home. My brother and I were teenagers by that time. I recall sitting down with my mother and brother and we were talking about ghost and other types of paranormal activities. She said "no matter what, never speak of this stuff around your dad." We asked, "why?" She said "your Dad says he's seen the same things you guys have. That's why we moved. He couldn't take it anymore." I asked my mom point blank, "was there a lady who died in that house? How did Dad get that house so cheap?" She said "that house was sold via an estate sale. There was an old woman who lived there. She passed away from a heart attack in the living room. Her kids sold everything to pay for her funeral and debts." My brother and I just stared at each other and we both said "MOM, WE TOLD YOU WE THOUGHT THAT WAS MAMMAW! REMEMBER THAT MORNING YOU WERE SO MAD AT US ASKING FOR MAMMAW?! THAT WAS THAT WOMAN!" My mom just looked at us and looked down and said "yeah... I know... We didn't want you kids being scared of the house because there was a ghost." I said "Then what of the shadow man?!" She said "What shadow man?"
I went and got my old sketch book and opened the pages and showed them to her. She kept touching all the dates and all the times. She started to get teary eyed. She said "I had no clue you seen this man... This was why you were so scared? All those times?!" I said "yes. And I still am." She said "I seen that man before at your Uncles house when I was a little girl. When you had that fit there that one night, I remembered that and swore we wouldn't go there ever again..." And at that point we never did. I never stayed the night, we never visited there, if we saw them, they would be at my grandmas or our house. We never stepped foot in that house. But I guess it loved to follow us.
That discussion with my mom and brother started my hunt for answers of things unknown. I've lived in a few houses since then who had different entities residing within its walls. Some friendly and some not so friendly but, I grew up to not be afraid of the unknown. Being more scientific now as years passed on, now I look for the reasoning. The what, where, why and when to their situations. I used to keep it a secret out of fear I would be ridiculed by my peers. As of late, it seems by chance that my closest of friends, whom are also gifted (if you can call it that) to seeing spirits/other types of entities, are always around. When all of us are together, the sightings and "bumps in the night" are more frequent. And we're ok with it.
My most recent move to Wisconsin into a house that dates late 1800's has been... One of the most trying situations and with that I do have video from my fiancé's new cell phone of the mist man and on that same video you can see my dog looking at something and hear a little girls voice say "I'm right here!" and an orb fly away from the side of our dog. We did start renovations in this house a few months ago and have recently blessed the home. For the past four days, it's finally been peaceful without the walking on eggshells kind of feeling I used to get.
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