Followed By Knocking

Before joining this site I had started going through a 'bad haunting' I guess you'd call it. By the time I joined it had escalated. I delayed submitting this story because I didn't want to think about it. It's because of this 'haunting' I wound up finding this site, so every cloud.

Started about a year ago with slight tapping sounds which I only noticed when it was quiet. For weeks I thought it was the house settling and/or animals in the walls. After about two months I started to wonder about it. Every time it happened I would feel intimidated and scared. This isn't like me. Still I put it down to rational explanations. At that time I guess I noticed it three times a week.

In 2014 (around early August) I was home alone one night and noticed tapping again, very faintly. I felt scared as soon as I noticed it.

This 'tapping' sounded like someone was lightly tapping the kitchen bench top with one finger and this matched the sound's direction. It occurred every 10 or so seconds. It reminded me of that old torture method where slow steady drips of water are dripped onto a victim's forehead. An extreme comparison to draw, but I kept thinking of this.

As I listened it moved to other surfaces in the kitchen; the microwave, a cupboard, the sink and another part of the bench. It also gained in volume a few times then quietened down again. Almost as if to recharge its energy. At least that's the context I placed on the velocity variations. I stood there listening for about twenty minutes. Probably a stupid thing to do in hindsight. I later tapped on surfaces to match the sounds I'd heard.

This is the night I told my husband. Before this I didn't want to believe something negative was happening and kept brushing it off. We're both spiritual and have a free flowing dialogue about ghost topics. With hindsight I'm open to the possibility this presence was isolating me, encouraging me to 'tell no one'. I regret not speaking up sooner.

My husband said he'd never heard any tapping noises. This concerned me as now it felt somehow personal. As we were talking about this in the lounge two loud knocks came from the kitchen. We checked the kitchen and found nothing out of place. This really scared me. Apart from those two loud knocks in the kitchen on that night, which was last year, my husband hasn't heard any more tapping or knocking.

After that night I noticed it every single day but only when I was alone. Sometimes it was loud knocks on a wall or surface other times slight tapping. But always in the same room I'm in.

But since then, whenever the tapping starts, a fatigue comes over me. But I'm not really tired. It's as if I don't want to deal with this and react by wanting to sleep. This isn't like me either.

We cleanse and protect our home and ourselves regularly and always have done. Yet this could still get through sometimes. However I believe without any protective barrier this would be A LOT worse.

Sometimes I call my husband into any room I'm in when there's taps or bangs so that he can confirm I'm not hearing things. But as soon as he gets within earshot it stops. Very frustrating. As months went on it got more and more relentless and the bouts of fatigue became more severe.

We play it by ear over Christmas, visit some family separately then meet up around New Years. The last couple of years we spent New Years in California and were doing the same this year. My husband's family are made up roughly 50/50 English and American.

Over Christmas I stayed at my mum's in Australia. Stupid tapping, knocks and bangs started up there. Much to my shock. I really started to question my sanity at this point. Told mum about it (she's open minded), mum said she'd keep her ears pealed. Then, just like when I told hubby about it, my mum and I heard two loud knocks coming from another room right when we were discussing it. Apart from when I told my husband and mum about this the taps and knocks seem to always be in the same room I'm in.

I kept an open mind, regardless of my fear, that perhaps this was someone or something who wanted my attention for well intended reasons and was expressing frustration. That possibility diminished when my beloved cat became frail and later passed. I call him 'my cat' but he was really mum's cat. This cat and I had a special bond and we were best buddies. I always asked mum how he was, just like I would a person.

He was very old between 17 and 20 (Mum got the cat as an adult cat and was never sure of his exact age). That cat was a best friend and big part of my life for 15 years. Love him, miss him.

Before he died he survived pneumonia (made a full recovery much to the vet's shock). When treating him for pneumonia we were prepared for the worst. I spent every speck of spare time taking care of him. When it was just me and my sick cat in the house the knocking was at its peak. I felt it was taunting me and I still can't believe how much it dragged me down.

Every day during that time I cried for the impending loss of my cat. The knocking was so relentless I questioned my own sanity. There's no doubt that it fed off what I was already feeling. I told it to 'F--- off' many times and it quietened down when I spoke without fear. I learned fearlessness was the key to overcome this.

Because of my love for the cat this year I stayed at mum's over New Years. One evening with just me and my recovering cat, I was kneeling down giving him some water with an oral syringe to keep up his fluids. Behind me I heard footsteps approach. They stopped directly behind me and I felt a foot tapping heavily and slowly. It felt threatening, not like an impatient foot tap. My cat started cowering. I waved my arm in the direction of the foot tap and said something vulgar to it. This worked, my cat calmed down and the house was quiet for the rest of the night. Protecting my cat overcame any fearful inhibitions I may have normally about this presence.

I don't believe that this negativity (whatever it is) had anything to do with my cat. But I am so ANGRY at it for screwing with the bit of precious time we had together in this realm.

After this I asked my guardian for help and soon could feel his presence around mum's place. Nothing else negative happened while I was there. My cat recovered, rather miraculously, gained strength, energy and lived happily for a further three weeks. He slipped away peacefully in his sleep. That cat always astounded vets. He did this right up to the end. I'm so proud of him!

After returning home the tapping, banging and knocks started up. But now there was a new form of annoyance which I must admit makes me laugh because it's so completely cliché. You ready for this? Bed shaking. I can't believe it. So lame.

Nonetheless if I go to bed before my husband sometimes the bed shakes. Things in the bedroom are tapped, I can hear the wardrobe door moving back and forth (it makes a distinct noise). Every time this happens, like with the knocking/tapping/banging I feel fatigued. It's a different kind of fatigue to pleasantly sleepy, it feels like I could just sleep from exhaustion. Again, this is not like me. I always meditate before going to sleep, all this activity makes it very difficult.

By now I'd found this website and learned the importance of keeping a journal. The next few paragraphs contain entries from the particularly bad days of my journal entries. I've elaborated in brackets here and there for context.

March 19th, early evening, I was alone, it was quiet, tapping started. Seconds after heard a male voice, behind me. It sounded like it was trying to speak but had trouble being heard, it sounded like a loud whisper. It spoke with long drawn out syllables. I felt threatened. It said: "I... I... Am... Going to..."

I interrupted saying "F--- off" it stopped and so did the fatigue. (The timing of my reaction amused me and I felt rather smug I'd completed its sentence with my own desire for it to leave.) The voice had an American accent.

Sunday March 22nd, late evening. When I walked into studio (studio door is usually kept shut, when I opened the door) the room smelled like death. (That terrible decaying smell.) This isn't good. Went outside to test smell, no smell outside. Came back, smell was still in studio. (I kept an open mind, it could have been something in the walls.)

(On Saturday, the day before, we had a party and didn't get to bed until around 5:30 am. We were both pretty tired and hubby went to bed early on Sunday. I wanted to as well but because of the strange male voice I'd heard, a couple days before, I stayed up a little later to research more on cleansing.)

Don't know if this thing knew what I was about to do or if it's coincidence. (Bearing in mind I was already tired and the studio is sound proofed.) I was reading for half hour and putting up with awful smell. I started feeling the most fatigued I'd ever felt (with the exception of the flu or something). I was fighting sleep with my eyes closing while reading.

Then the knocking started. This time it was very loud and aggressive, without many pauses in between. A strange whooshing sound started and grew louder. I put headphones on and drowned it out. Then it knocked on the studio door (which was open and beside where I was.) This scared me so bad. Stopped reading, did quick cleanse/protect of house and self. The whooshing left, knocking stopped, felt less fatigued and smell disappeared. Went to bed. (I don't know what the whooshing was. I was so tired I wonder if I imagined it.)

23rd March Finally did Rook's cleansing method, with few variations. Used dark blue candle and 'Vampire Blood' incense (silly name but I like using it for cleansing purposes.) This really worked!

(Resume normal story telling from here)

I put off using Rook's method for a while because I don't like sunlight or any bright light. I will certainly keep up Rook's cleansing method periodically. But won't change my default 'low light' ways (except during cleansing).

Sometimes I get visions, like premonitions in the form of dreams. A few days before I told my husband about the tapping (last year), I had a dream about a good acquaintance of ours. I'll call him T. I'm used to getting visions and had a gut feeling the tapping was connected to T, because of the dream. But still kept an open mind that the dream was unrelated. Shortly after this dream I had another different dream which my gut told me was connected to the fist one.

Quick summary on T:

He's a middle aged father. He's American, from Texas originally. He's the sort of person that always sees the funny side to things.

With all that had happened I decided to trust the dreams. I opened up to some friends about the knocking and the voice and all that has happened so far. (Except the dreams.)

I intentionally did this in a group social setting when T was present. Despite his social graces and humour he's a very private person, as I am. I've known him for years and always shared a laugh with him but we've never been that close. The thought of dumping paranormal stuff on him seemed like a dead end idea.

Everyone started telling ghost stories afterwards. T pulled me aside and we went outside for a cigarette. He gave me the go ahead to share what he told me.

He said he'd experienced something very similar back in 2001. (Long before we met.) It happened where he was living in Texas. He described the same knocks and bangs, soft tapping, the fear associated with those sounds, the unexpected extreme fatigue, the voice and everything happening whenever he was alone.

We spoke at length about the voice. It sounds like the same voice, if not one very similar. T heard it say:

"I am going to make you pay." Which might have been what the voice I heard was going to say before I cut it off.

T didn't tell his wife about anything until he heard the voice. She thought he'd been working too hard and put it down to stress. He heard the voice a second time, saying the same thing but the second time it also said some 'ah, aahh, ah' sounds. He told me about all these horrible times alone in his house with the banging and fatigue, it all sounded very similar. Except for one thing.

Eventually the banging started coming from T and his wife's bedroom, not the same room he'd be in. Again, this only happened when he was alone. When it came from the bedroom he wasn't fatigued. (Because of one of the dreams I'd had I wasn't completely shocked by what he told me next. But I was shocked by his candour and openness to the paranormal.)

One evening, while alone with banging coming from their bedroom, he made himself "fight the fear", his words, and go into the bedroom. Soon as he turned the light on he saw a head (severed) pounding against the wall. He only glimpsed it because he turned and ran outside, but he's sure that's what it was.

I told him about the dreams I'd had and confessed about manipulating the group conversation to gauge his reaction. We had a good old natter about ghost stories after that, turns out T's really open minded, I never knew.

After this I thought there was no way I was going to get any banging head activity. Well I was wrong. Within about a week or so I did hear some banging coming from our bedroom. My husband wasn't home at the time. There was NO WAY I was going up to investigate. By now I'd got some Dragon Blood incense and use that for the 'deep cleanse' which is what my husband and I call Rook's method. We hadn't done the deep cleanse in a few weeks and it was night time when the banging started. I lit some dragons blood and placed it on the stairs near our bedroom. This did the trick and within a few minutes the banging stopped. Needless to say we started another deep cleanse the next day.

Since then there has been more banging from our room but only during that time we're due for another deep cleanse. Which always rids it away.

I forgot to enter this into my journal so I don't know the exact date. It was after the banging in the bedroom started happening. I was alone, of course, and it was daylight outside. I was in the lounge room listening to music. In this moment I was concentrating on some of the technical aspects of a song. When I do this I'm zoned out to the rest of the world, full attention on the song. The sun beams through the window in the afternoon and I'd closed the curtain because of this. There's the silhouette of some geranium outside on the curtain. I'm zoned out, listening away, then semi-notice a silhouette of a head outside. But it's floating and suspended in mid air. I watched it but my attention was still on the music.

Still in my zone I thought something like, "That's not a bird. That looks like a head. It's not an intruder, it's not attached to anything and the geranium isn't moving. How strange."

It was all very matter of fact and I immediately forgot all about it. The strangest part is I didn't think of the banging head at all. Not until later that night when my husband did something that reminded me and I had a huge 'ah huh' moment. We had a good laugh about it because as far as scary haunting attempts go it was such a fail on all conceivable levels.

Since then there's been a few bangs here and there and a few bouts of mild fatigue. This always happens when it's deep cleanse time. Which tells me we need to deep cleanse more often than our current once a month, for the time being at least.

Side note: When I bumped into my guardian from another story this is the direction he was looking from the window. The side of the house, toward the lounge room. On that day I had run out of the lounge to the front door.

Couple questions:

Why and how would a ghost single out two seemingly unrelated people over more than ten years in very different locations?

Should T be concerned it will return to him?

Or is this some 'standardised haunting' and really just separate ghosts pulling very similar stunts?

T, hubby and myself think it's the same ghost that harassed T years ago. But we can't find any logic to it. Maybe there isn't any to find.

Thanks for reading.

(PS I have tried multiple times to include the two dreams within this story. However I omitted them here because they interrupted the flow and were unpleasantly jarring. I feared the reader would wind up with information overload. I don't mind sharing them in the comments if want arises.)