Second-floor Apparition

A few days ago (Today being Monday, the 11th, and that day being Thursday, the 8th), I had a rather queer run-in with something that I just can't seem to make sense of.

Thus, I'm hoping you helpful people might be able to provide me with some information or advice.

First, I'd like to give you a very loose background regarding me as a person. All of my life, at least as far back as I can remember. I have been sensitive to goings-on other worldly. Or completely batty. Either or, I've always heard and felt and even, in some largely unpleasant cases, smelled and tasted, entities that others do not - perhaps ghosts, demons, angels, fey, or whatever you might feel they should be called. I can't see them well, in most cases, usually the most I can perceive visually is a dense shadow, mist, silhouette, and various and sundry permutations thereof, but there is always a sort of feeling to them, an ineffable sense of empathy toward a creature that is more or less than physical. I always get this feeling when there are living things nearby, such as people or mammals, but rarely insects or plants and the like, and so it seems to me like I perceive the mind and emotions of something, but without a body attached, which would fit the profile for a ghost or something, right?

But I'm not quick to leap to the conclusion that I'm a psychic or anything like that. Maybe very empathic or sensitive, but it's not like I could read you your future or tell you (in most cases) extremely obscure facts about yourself. I can just tell how you're feeling, that you're near me, your gender, etc., all intuitively. So, dear reader, you can be the judge as to what that makes me.

I'm sorry for the length, there, but you have my gratitude for reading this far. Now, let's get down to business...

For a few weeks, here at my grandparents house, (Indianapolis, Indiana, in a relatively large, old house on the southwest side of town), my grandma and I had been hearing odd noises coming from above us at night. Now, this is naturally somewhat unnerving, considering the upper rooms of the house have been completely uninhabited, and indeed largely untouched, for 15-17 years at least. We were usually able to just pass off the creaking's, thumping's (as though something large was walking about), shuffling, and very weird instances of a series of rolling thumps almost like hoof beats, as squirrels or raccoons or something having gotten in through the damaged roof, and get to sleep.

Just to be sure, though, because those noises sounded very very heavy oftentimes, my grandpa and I went up last Wednesday during the daytime and had a thorough look around. We found no evidence of anyone having been up there, other than some broken cobwebs that could've been broken long ago. The carpeted floor wouldn't show footprints or tracks, unfortunately, and there weren't any other signs of recent activity otherwise.

Well, I stayed up late the next night talking to my girlfriend (which is very much a common occurrence), when the noises began with gusto. After a while, I was annoyed and curious enough that I decided I'd grab a mag light and head up there.

At the top of the stairs, there are three doors, one for each of the large rooms up there - left, right, and center. First I checked the right door, as it often comes open on its down due to being warped with age, so I figured it'd be most likely for animals to invade. I tromped in and searched all about, literally everywhere in the room, leaving no drawer unopened, and found nothing.

So I closed the door tightly behind me and went across to the left, and repeated the process, with the same results.

However, once I came out, the center door was ajar. I put it up to warping of the wood, and shrugged it off in the name of being a macho man... Or something, I guess. So I went in and looked all around. Much to my lack of surprise at this point, I found nothing at all. So I turned from the dresser on the wall opposite the door when sudden I felt a sort of tendril of fright from somewhere.

It was fear coming from something in the room, and it was so foreign and strange that it made me instantly terrified as well. I thought of those monster movies where the slimy face sucking beast is always on the ceiling, and somehow managed not to wet myself. I swung my light around and scanned the ceiling and walls, and shuddered when the beam passed over something that immediately moved. I swung the light around and around, but couldn't find it again. That fear was the same, persisting, but I was personally bordering on panic.

Then, a horrific thump near the door. I reflexively point the light in that direction, and to my indescribable, paralyzing horror, I see something staring back, crouched near the floor. I'm working on accurately drawing the thing, because I can't quite seem to describe it accurately - it had several limbs in rows along what must've been a torso, all of them sort of like humanoid arms, mottled and pinkish in the flashlight beam.

Its body was black, and indistinct, like furry or shadowy despite the light, and from the very front of this mass, on a weird, bent neck, something between a skinny man's and that of a vulture, sat a vaguely humanoid, large, pale head. The mouth was like a long, freakish fissure from nearly the base of the skull, I assume, to almost the 'chin' of the skull, and on either side of it there were rows of humanoid eyes, all wide and seemingly dilated to see in the dark. If it was as dense as an average dog or person, it would've weighed, easily, 120 pounds, judging by its size.

Judging by the time that elapsed between when I went up and when I came down, ten minutes at least must've passed where this impossible thing and I stared at one another, full of fear.

Slowly, I got a handle on myself - it hadn't moved yet, and I couldn't pick up outright hostility... So I decided that something had to give, and stepped forward, just a little. Just as cautiously as I could. When I did, it backed up. So a little further I went, and it began backing toward the large walk-in closet of the room, which is on the right side of the doorway.

As it backed up, it reached up and turned the knob on the closet door, opened it, and skittered backward inside. Its movements then, I believe, made that exact rolling noise we were hearing before. It closed the door quickly behind itself, and knowing of no other alternative; I bolted downstairs and sat up until morning at the computer with a handgun and the lights in the room on.

We still hear the noises sometimes, but they're quieter now. Any ideas on what this thing could be? Anything like this encountered in any mythology or folklore that might indicate it's a specific kind of paranormal entity, or is this a truly, truly freak occurrence? Or what we should do about it, if anything?

I would very much appreciate your feedback. While I don't think we're in danger, I am still incredibly curious and afraid.