The Crying Baby

It was 2002, I was 16 at the time and we just moved to a new house in George, South Africa. It was a lovely house with a big shady garden and the first couple of months everything was fine, with no sign of any "activities" to my relief as all our previous houses had "tenants".

One Sunday we had unexpected guests that slept over and left early the Monday morning. That Monday afternoon when my mother picked me up from school she told me what a good laugh she got out of my dad the previous night.

He told her he heard a baby crying, and every time he got to the room it was emanating from it would die down and start somewhere else in the house. She was sure it must have been the toddler of the people that stayed over the previous night.

Naturally I was scared out of my wits, and when the evening grew closer I was terrified. I didn't get much sleep that night, but nothing happened, and I told myself my mom was right my dad just imagined it.

The following evening my best friend at the time was sleeping over. It was past midnight when I woke up from a baby's crying. I immediately woke my friend up and asked her if she heard it. We tried to tell ourselves that is was just the cats making a racket, as it was that time of year, but the crying grew louder and to our horror, a woman's voice joined in trying to lull the baby with a very eerie lalalala.

We were both too scared to get out of bed, I desperately wanted to switch on the light and call my dad, but I just couldn't pluck up the courage to do it, neither could my friend. The door was slightly ajar and we were afraid of what we would find on the other side of it. The crying would stop for short intervals, but then start up again, worse than before. When the crying got too much we started calling my dad, half hysterically I must add.

I still don't know how my parents got to my room so fast. My dad immediately knew what was wrong. I remember my mom still asked me to close the windows as it was freezing in my room, but I didn't have any open.

My father said a prayer, and we ended up sleeping in my parent's room for the rest of the night. I would wake up in cold sweat for weeks to come after that.

Needless to say I still get the chills when I think back to that night.

The only explanation we could come up with was that my room must have been a nursery and a baby probably died there.