Someone Is At The Door
I thought it was just me.
For the last year or so, I've had this reoccurring dream. I never remember the dream, but I will suddenly wake up in the middle of the night with my heart pounding. The last thing I remember before waking is the sound of someone violently pounding on a door's glass pane. The sound of their hand beating on the glass is very distinct, the tempo of the fist-falls are fast. Urgent.
I look at the clock. It's usually between three and three-thirty in the morning. Other times, I wake with no memory of anything at all, but it is at roughly the same time. 3:12 AM. 3:23 AM. 3:33 AM. Restless sleep and waking.
The house is invariably silent. Nothing stirs. I drift into a fit-full sleep.
I mention my insomnia to Scarlet. She jokes it's the Devil's Hour and tells me I ought to watch The Exorcism of Emily Rose. Thank you, but no.
A month or more ago, Scarlet was dreaming. Gideon was in the dream, and he suddenly turns to her and says, "There's someone at the door."
Scarlet wakes up. The house is silent. Then, someone starts beating on the Devil Queen's front door. It's loud and sharp. Scarlet is worried they'll break the glass they are beating so hard. The door rattles in its frame. It's urgent, insistent in a way that says something is wrong. Fire. Death. Disaster.
The house is quite. There are no footfalls on the porch. There is no sound of someone running away from the house on the gravel driveway. No one is there. Scarlet lays awake for a little and falls back to sleep.
Over breakfast Scarlet says, "I think we have another ghost. Have you heard the knocking on the front door?"
I tell her yes, but that I thought it was a dream. She tells me about her experience.
She sips her coffee. "How do you sleep here all the time?" she asks. "After a weekend here, I'm more tired than after a full week of work."
"You get use to it," I shrug, "but a lot of times I don't."
For the last year or so, I've had this reoccurring dream. I never remember the dream, but I will suddenly wake up in the middle of the night with my heart pounding. The last thing I remember before waking is the sound of someone violently pounding on a door's glass pane. The sound of their hand beating on the glass is very distinct, the tempo of the fist-falls are fast. Urgent.
I look at the clock. It's usually between three and three-thirty in the morning. Other times, I wake with no memory of anything at all, but it is at roughly the same time. 3:12 AM. 3:23 AM. 3:33 AM. Restless sleep and waking.
The house is invariably silent. Nothing stirs. I drift into a fit-full sleep.
I mention my insomnia to Scarlet. She jokes it's the Devil's Hour and tells me I ought to watch The Exorcism of Emily Rose. Thank you, but no.
A month or more ago, Scarlet was dreaming. Gideon was in the dream, and he suddenly turns to her and says, "There's someone at the door."
Scarlet wakes up. The house is silent. Then, someone starts beating on the Devil Queen's front door. It's loud and sharp. Scarlet is worried they'll break the glass they are beating so hard. The door rattles in its frame. It's urgent, insistent in a way that says something is wrong. Fire. Death. Disaster.
The house is quite. There are no footfalls on the porch. There is no sound of someone running away from the house on the gravel driveway. No one is there. Scarlet lays awake for a little and falls back to sleep.
Over breakfast Scarlet says, "I think we have another ghost. Have you heard the knocking on the front door?"
I tell her yes, but that I thought it was a dream. She tells me about her experience.
She sips her coffee. "How do you sleep here all the time?" she asks. "After a weekend here, I'm more tired than after a full week of work."
"You get use to it," I shrug, "but a lot of times I don't."
Labels: Devils, restless dead, sleep deprivation
posted by John | 6:06 AM
9 Comments:
I'm kinda weirded out now. The Box House has ghosts too! I just have squirrels and I'm ok with that.
Ethan@OneProjectCloser
I haven't noticed anything in our current house yet, but in my old place we would hear someone rummaging through our utensil drawers in the kitchen. The first time it happened, my roommate at the time and I accused each other of being loud in the middle of the night, then of course realized we'd both been snug in our beds at the time...
That is the most frightening post ever. I have chills. I hope our ghost never gets crazy like that.
No way. There is no way I could handle that. What's the history?
I have a theory. You moved the house from it's original location. And spirits don't always stay in just one place, which is why you can have reports of the same spirit haunting several location, like Lincoln or Marilyn Monroe, etc. So perhaps a spirit is just trying to return to the house and doesn't know how to get back in after being somewhere else, therefore, knocking one the door!
But it sounds pretty polite if it is indeed a spirit knocking on the door instead of just barging in.
Regarding the Devil Queen's history:
Van Boswell built it or bought it in 1890. He had three wives, two of which most likely died here. We believe his first wife is the woman in the window. Van Boswell, Jr. (by wife #1) probably died in the DQ at round age 3. The crying baby and boy in our master bedroom? Mr. Boswell probably died here. Van Boswell, Jr. (#2 by his third wife) probably died here 2-3 years after his dad. Only God knows how many other bodies have been in our house. The family were all musicians which could explain the piano.
With the death of his youngest son by his third marriage, the house passed out of the family in 1986 or 1989. I forget. It was rent house and a small business before it was abandoned to junkies and the elements. Then we got it.
As for the knocking, I have my own theory. Most of the ghosts came with the house when it was moved. The house's original location was three blocks from the heart of the old, historic downtown. The whole thing burned down in 1908. The DQ survived. I wonder if someone came to warn them about the fire maybe? I haven't found any clues, so who knows?
That is a downright creepy story--I'm glad our ghost just paces back and forth, smoking the occasional cigarette.
Creepy. Really creepy. Our whistling ghost is back, and my son finally heard him a week or so ago. Thursday night during all the stormy weather, I heard a door repeatedly slamming shut somewhere in the house. Our doors are sawn in half vertically (another sucky PO project) so they don't slam. And at any rate, I was alone in the house. "Get the door, it's Domino's." Ha ha.
They sawed the doors in half? Vertically? Bugger. Why the hell would anyone do that?
Sigh. Sorry to hear that. Really.
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