The Intruder

This experience happened to me when I was 16 years old. I used to live in an old home in a small town. The house had wooden floors in every room except the kitchen, which had linoleum flooring. The front door was directly lined with the back door because the house was a rectangle shape and the backdoor only led to a fenced backyard.

At the time, I lived with a friend's family because they lived closer to the school I attended. I was home alone one night. It was about 8pm and I was laying on my bed reading. The bedroom had two entry doors to it, one that led to the living room and the other to the kitchen, and both were on the same wall.

As I was reading on the bed, I heard the locked front door swing open and immediately heard someone with thick-heeled boots walk into the house. I heard the footsteps coming towards me then I heard the front door slam, like the person had swung it open making the door close itself. I listened as the heavy footsteps got closer to me. Then it stopped, right outside my closed bedroom door. At that point, I held my breath. I remember thinking,'If he knows I'm here, I'm dead.' Morbid, I know but I was thinking if I hid under the bed he would have heard me move, so I held my breath and watched if the doorknob turned.

The footsteps stopped for that time, as if whomever it was stopped to contemplate opening the bedroom door. Finally the footsteps moved on and continued to walk further into the house. I didn't let my breath go until I heard him pass the second bedroom door.

This part is a little strange because when the footsteps entered the kitchen, they made the same sound as they did on the wooden floor. I would have thought that the linoleum would have absorbed some of the heavy sound. To add to that, I heard the back door swing open the whole time I heard him walking to it, as if the door opened before he arrived to it. It was locked and someone would have to stop walking to open it and pull it towards them. At last, I heard the footsteps exit the house and the back door slam shut. That is when I ran out the house through the front door and ran five blocks to the local police station (I didn't have a car). I told them there was an intruder that walked through my house and may still be in the backyard.

The police came and inspected the doors, house, and yard but told me there was no sign of forced entry or anyone on the property. After seeing my dejected face, one officer asked me "You know these houses are old, right?" At the time, I didn't understand what he was implying. The officer told me to talk with owner of the house about the incident.

The next morning, my friend had beat me to it and told her mother that I had called the police the night before because I had thought someone broke in. We all sat around the kitchen table and I explained to her mother what I heard. My friend's mother took the same position as the officer and told me that the house was 112 years old and it was more likely it was a ghost than a burglar and the ghost probably didn't know I was in the house when it entered. I remember looking at them and laughing, because at the time, it was the most absurd thing I had heard.

Now I know better. I think this experience gave me a clearer explanation to what was happening around me. Even though I have had experiences my whole life, when I was younger, my family never spoke of ghosts or the sort, so I wasn't able to talk about certain issues with them.

I am thinking this may have been a residual haunt, simply because the footstep sounds didn't change with the flooring. But that still doesn't explain why it stopped at the bedroom door or how it opened the front and back door. Any thoughts on this?

Just a note, when I say "he" it's only because, I can sense gender. I assume it is a certain energy I am picking up that let\'s me do it.