Closest Thing To A Demon

This is not about demons or devils. This is about the man who is technically my grandfather. He died before I was born. No one mourned him, and I mean no one. He was a pedophile, alcoholic, violent, abusive individual.

On first impression he was a charming man, handsome, polite, personable. But he couldn't hold up the charade for very long. He ended up losing any friends he made pretty quickly.

By the time he died his children were teenagers and young adults. The circumstances surrounding his death were mysterious and still are. He was found a long way from where he lived. He was last seen running through this area from, seemingly someone, through suburban backyards, frantically jumping fences but no one was seen chasing him. His body was found near by a short time after, he had been bashed.

Times were different in my grandparents' day. A woman raising a family as a single parent was uncommon, likewise this idea wasn't financially supported in society. Financially it was impossible for my Grandmother to up and leave him, just like that. She did her best to keep the family safe. Eventually she would open her own florist business and with the success of this and music teaching was finally able to leave him. She kept the family home and he went to live with his sister.

My Grandmother believed in ghosts but never talked much about them, with this one exception. Shortly after my grandfather died, a few weeks or so later, she was taking a bath. As she laid back to immerse her hair she felt someone push and hold her under the water. She thrashed around but could not lift herself up. Eventually the force was lifted. She threw on her gown and ran out to tell the, by then mature, kids what happened. She wasn't the sort to talk about ghosts with or around younger people. She would never talk to me about this incident, only to say "That's not something you need to worry about". They all believed it was him. I got the details over the years from other family members. They remember her as running into the lounge all out of breath and dripping wet. Mum quoted her as saying "Your father tried to drown me"

This horrible event is hard for me to imagine. I never knew my Grandmother to be afraid of anything.

We lived with my Grandmother for a while in the 80's, about four years. I knew her house well. One of the floor boards outside Gran's bedroom was very noisy. Back in 2000, shortly after she passed, we were clearing her house out. This process took a long time. But this night happened shortly after her passing.

Gran had four rings which were special to her. There was a story behind each of them. The diamonds and gems had been passed down through the generations. My Aunty had put these rings aside, in one of Gran's drawers and told her three siblings to each choose one to keep and take home. My Mum isn't interested in jewelry and wasn't interested in any of the rings so my Aunty told me to choose one instead.

This particular time Mum and I went over to the house at night. It was a very windy night. Mum was in the garage and bungalo thing and I was clearing out the kitchen and bedroom. I felt sad taking one of Gran's rings, I decided it best to make this the last task of the night. As I was sorting through odds and ends in her bedroom I was thinking about the rings. I hadn't told anyone from the family about this, but I'd secretly hoped a particular ring hadn't been claimed yet. It was because of a conversation I'd had with Gran about her rings one day. She lit up when talking about this particular ring. It had diamonds and emeralds. The emeralds had come from her Grandmother's engagement ring and she had them set with a diamond which came from her mother's engagement ring, together with a diamond from her own engagement ring. It was the way she loved talking about this ring that day, that made it special to me. My Aunty loves family history and sentimentality so I figured she would have that ring. I didn't mind, as long as it was in good hands, and I knew that with her it would be.

Finally I took a break and checked the drawer. To my surprise that ring was there. This is where things get weird.

The rings were in a top drawer of a tallboy, so I was standing. It was very windy that night and I began hearing a conversation, sounded like outside. I thought the wind was carrying the sound because you couldn't normally hear outside street conversations from inside the house, unless people were yelling. These voices were simply talking. I don't remember exactly when this conversation started. But it was right about when I decided to look at the rings.

As I was looking at the rings I realized the conversation was my Grandmother and two of her passed on friends. They sounded like they were having the best time. Just like one of my Gran's many dinner parties. The strange part was my lack of reaction. I was listening intently thinking 'that's definitely them', but I felt strangely numb and slightly on edge. Also strange they sounded like they were coming from the back spare room, which was also my old bedroom. This didn't make much sense. But I guess, if they really were there, they might use a room where they weren't likely to be interrupted. This or, the act of opening this drawer, with the intent of choosing a ring, connected me with them. Either way there was something about the wind that night which felt helpful to my hearing them. Though I can't fathom why.

Gran's bedroom door always naturally swung closed, leaving a large space open. It's an old house. So the bedroom door was semi closed. I was stood at the drawer with my back to the door, listening. Then the familiar noisy creak of the floor boards outside the bedroom door. Someone was there and it wasn't Mum, I would've heard the wire door which sounded like a crash symbol. The floor boards weren't sounding as if someone was walking on them, more like standing on them and positioning themselves. I knew it was him, my grandfather.

This was a very strange moment and still is to remember. I could still hear the jovial conversation through the wind, but I knew 'he' was outside the door. The floor boards creaked again, I was sure he was peering in through the opening in the door. I tried to ignore it but after a few more creaks, it was too much. I quickly put the ring into a box I found in the drawer, put this into my makeup bag and into my handbag, then gathered everything else. This simple action seemed to take for ever.

It might not sound like much, but this was the scariest ghost encounter I've ever had, still is to this day. I don't believe I'd ever encountered my grandfather before that night and Gran's house never felt negatively haunted by anything.

I ran out of the bedroom heading to the front door. Exiting the bedroom was awful, I felt he was standing right there, enjoying scaring me. The rest of the house was dark, usually I love the dark, but not that night.

Mum was still in the garage. I said something simple like "Mum, this feels weird, can we go?" She said she also felt weird. I said I hadn't locked up yet and didn't want to go back up alone. She told me to wait in the car, which I gladly did. Then I realized I'd left the kitchen and bedroom lights on.

When Mum got into the car I asked her how the house felt and she said it felt good. She said she felt negativity shortly before I came down but that it left again. I was glad of that. I asked if she heard any talking and she said she didn't. I didn't want to talk about what had happened so I said I thought I heard a noisy bunch of people walking past the house before I came out.

Shortly after that night I had a dream about my grandfather. In the dream I was standing outside Gran's house, in the front yard. It was night time and windy, like that night. I was standing outside the garage, he was standing at the pathway to the front door, almost blocking me from entering, now that I think about it. As odd as this sounds he had yellow skin and strange patches on his face. The patches were skin which resembled a deflated balloon, a bit sunken and dimpled. These were around his temples. That was it, end of dream. Needless to say the mood wasn't good.

It was many years later that I told my Mum about what happened that night, and the dream. The rest of the family only spoke of positive ghost encounters around that time. Maybe I was targeted for whatever reason, ergh. When I told her about the dream, she told me that's how he looked when she identified him. She also said he looked wet.

Mum was interstate when he died, no one wanted to identify him. His sister hated him, despite taking him in, she didn't want to do it either. So it took a few days. Because of Gran's florist business, which mostly came from funerals and weddings, we've seen a fair amount of dead folk. I've seen at least one yellow-ish corpse that I can remember, he wasn't as yellow as my grandfather in the dream. Mum said she never came across anyone so yellow again. No one had anything to do with him after Gran kicked him out. In those years it's possible he developed jaundice and turned yellow. But the body staying yellow like that after a few days? Perhaps the morgue staff put some yellowy lotion on him for some reason. That might explain why he looked 'wet'.

He was buried in an unmarked grave at the end of the street where my Gran lived. My Gran was buried in the same grave. Gran's headstone has no mention of him. It's like he never existed. It's possible this pissed him off enough to scare me, why the heck me though? I had nothing to do with it. Needless to say the yellow details provided by Mum freaked me out a little.

When I think about hearing Gran and her friends I can now separate that from the scary stuff and choose to just recall that part of it alone. It would suck if the creaking floorboards were my Grandmother and I simply got the heebie jeebies and jumped to the wrong conclusion. I might have missed out on a really cool encounter. But my gut told me the direct opposite. It was like he was interrupting something which would've otherwise been totally positive.

Thankfully I've had nothing more to do with this creep. What I've had is a brief encounter which chilled me to the core. Can't begin to fathom what it would've been like to live with him. He really is the closest thing I've known to a demon.

Thanks for reading.