Categories > Original > Horror
Something is living in my closet. I can hear its hoarse, raspy breathing emanating from behind the white door in between its whining whispers in the black of the night. It calls for me, begging for me to join it. Part of my mind wants to so bad, wants to see what lies beyond that door. The other part is what’s telling me no and that whatever is creeping beyond that door means to cause me a great deal of harm and I was believing that a lot more because of the anger and hate I can feel coming from it.
My entire body is shaking, drenched with sweat. Fear takes control of me, paralyzing my entire body. I try to ignore it, try to tell myself it isn’t real, but every single time I fail miserably. The voice continues to whisper as I hear its nails scratch on my door as if begging for me to let it out. It begins to speak louder and louder as if becoming enraged at being imprisoned. The scratching turns to banging as my door thrashes wildly in its hinges. I thought the days of the Boogeyman were over six years ago at the young age of ten when I stopped believing in make believe creatures and horrors in the night. As I lay in my bed, shaking with fear and pale with shock, I come to the realization that I must be hallucinating, monsters do not exist. It’s impossible for them to, they are stories told to get kids to behave or fall asleep and nothing more. Then again, is it possible to have a hallucination every night at the same time for the same duration of one painfully stretched out minute? I began to doubt my own theories.
The door continued to thrash about. Screams of pain and torture and maniacal laughter reverberated from inside the closet. I finally regained control of my body and immediately flung the covers over my head as I had done so many years ago in an attempt to feel protected from whatever stood on the other side of the sheets. My heart pounded in my chest with such force it felt as though it were in my throat, choking me. My pulse was incredibly fast as was my breathing. My fear was growing greater and greater by the second. I closed my eyes tight, trying to imagine a happier place than this, a happier thought. I remembered what my mom taught me to do when I was little in order to eliminate the fear. I began to count backwards from ten out loud. My voice shook with each syllable that pursed my lips.
“Ten…..”
The screams of pain echoed through my mind.
“Nine….”
A shrill laughter of horrendous enjoyment.
“Eight…”
Pounding against a wooden door.
“Seven….”
Fear crawling through my blood.
“Six…”
Darkness closing in around me.
“Five…”
Voices begging for safety.
“Four…”
My heart racing faster.
“Three…”
Fear never dying.
“Two…”
Brain pulsing.
“One…”
Silence.
I slowly slid the sheets from my head and peered at my closet door. It stood as still as it had one minute ago as if nothing had happened. I glanced at my alarm clock: 12:01 A.M. It always only lasted for one minute but it felt as though it lasted one hour. I stared at the door, relieved that the reoccurring nightmare had vanished yet again into the darkness from which it came. I was finally able to sleep.
The next day I awoke at eleven and grabbed some breakfast. I was home alone again. My mom was at her weekend job and my brother was out playing with his friends. I sighed and looked at the positive side; I didn’t have anyone to tell me to turn my music down. I quickly washed my plate and returned to my room where I plugged my Zune into my surround sound system and turned the speakers up to the point where I couldn’t hear myself think. I hopped onto my computer and an IM popped onto my screen. It was from my best friend Cameron. Shocked that he was even awake this early, I replied.
I closed out of my messenger and sat and thought for a while. What if, for once in his life, Cameron was actually right? What if my house was haunted? I began searching the web for haunting, ghosts, and various ghost legends. I found tons of cult sites and photo shopped pictures of ghosts but never any actual evidence of a ghost existing. That’s when I came across the blog of a sixteen year old girl who just recently moved out of the same city I lived in. I read through it, intrigued by the story she was telling.
My Ghost Experience
Four months ago, I lived in a two story house in a town six hours from my own. I had a room at the top of the stairs, the best one in the house, or so I thought. The first night I moved in, I noticed strange things happening such as various pictures and objects being moved around to different spots in my room or my make-up being spilled onto the floor. As my family had no pets and I was an only child, I was curious as to why this would happen. Eventually, more and more things would be moved around and I would come home to a bigger mess in my room. Then, one night, I heard voices and breathing come from inside of my closet. I thought I was having a nightmare and pinched myself to wake-up but I didn’t wake-up: it was real. The whispers grew to sounds of tortured screams and laughter. This event occurred every night for one month for one minute at midnight. The screams turned to pounding on my door and lights flickering on and off and yells. It became unbearable. One night it drove me so insane I flew out of my bed and yanked open my closet door. A gust of wind pushed me back against the wall and a scream of laughter echoed in my head as my lights flashed on and off and various pieces of my furniture were destroyed. Then, on my mirror, a message appeared as if somebody was writing it with a pen of blood but nobody was to be seen. It said “LEAVE THIS PLACE OR BE TRAPPED FOREVER!” My parents and I moved out the next day.
I read and re-read the blog over and over. This girl had experienced the same problem that I was experiencing now. Her story was so like mine it sent chills down my spine just thinking about it. I slowly turned to my closet and images of it shaking and pounding flashed through my mind. I shook my head and it looked normal again. I sighed heavily and stared at my computer screen, thinking. That’s when it hit me. This girl lived in the same house that I did now, a two story house and with a room at the top of the stairs. Seeing as how every house in my neighborhood was a different model and our neighborhood had the only two story houses in the small town, it had to be the same house.
I decided to run a search on my town and my house. What I came across chilled my blood and stopped my heart. My house was home to a serial killer that tortured teenagers twenty years ago. He kidnapped over one hundred local teens, brought them to his house, and tortured them until their bodies gave up. He then tossed their bodies in the second story bedroom, leaving them to rot. Once his location was discovered, the parents of the town broke into the man’s home and, when they discovered the bodies of their missing children, they tossed him into the closet and barred it shut, filling it with a nerve gas. The man died a very slow and painful death. Local legends say that laughter could be heard coming from the room as the man died. It took him one minute for his pathetic life to finally end, from midnight to 12:01.
I couldn’t believe what I had read. Everything pieced itself together like a puzzle. Ghosts are spirits of those that have unfinished business on Earth. Some are harmless and just make the area around them freezing while others are evil and, while they cannot touch you, they can touch objects and make noises and visions in order to harm a certain somebody in their presence. Those that are harmful are usually the spirits of druggies, convicts, maniacs, and, the most popular, serial killers. Sometimes spirits had to relive their deaths or crimes for eternity at a set time as a form of torture to their souls. That’s exactly what the screaming was that I had heard every night, the screams of his victims reliving their deaths over and over because their souls were taken from them by murder. The maniacal laughter was that of the murderous creep dying in the closet.
The mystery came together into one piece and it all made sense. Thinking about it, however, I regret being so nosey. Before I searched, it was just a horrible nightmare that occurred every night again and again. Now, it was the spirit of a murderer living in my closet, reliving his death again and again and again for all of eternity, his victim’s souls trapped to experience the same fate. Now, I needed to figure out a way to get rid of it.
With a short time of searching, I discovered a technique so simple it shocked me: ask the ghost to leave. Could it really be that simple? There was only one way to find out. I had to wait until the clock struck midnight that very night when I could try and make this spirit leave once and for all.
I sat on my bed, legs crossed, lights out, with a flashlight in my hand. Six Monster cans lay crushed across my floor, their contents digesting in my stomach to keep me awake until midnight. I glanced at my clock and my heart skipped a beat as I watched it revolve over to midnight and a realization hit me. It was a new day, a fresh start. Nothing that happened the previous day mattered. As of this moment, my new day was starting. What a terrible way to start a day.
Right on cue, the whispers began. That whiny voice played games with my mind, begging me to join it, begging for another victim. I fought against the urge to comply and stayed glued to my bed, staring at the empty, white door. The whispering ended quicker than usual and that’s when I knew something was different. Did it know what I was doing? I listened intently for the screaming and laughter but it didn’t come. Puzzled, I stood up and flicked on my flashlight. I moved towards the door and reached for the doorknob but froze in my steps hearing a female voice call out to me from behind it, echoing.
“Don’t open the door! You’ll let him free! Don’t let the Devil free!”
My mind raced with fear and terror. It was so packed full of various nightmares that it couldn’t even send the messages to my body parts to move. That’s when the laughter came. That horrible, ear piercing laughter. It grew louder and louder until I couldn’t bear it anymore and fell to the ground, gripping my burning ears. The closet door slowly opened and all I could see inside was darkness. The laughter stopped and I removed my hands from my ears, sliding with my back against my bed. I watched enough horror movies to know not to go sticking my head into newly opened doors.
For a few minutes nothing happened as I sat, watching the empty blackness. I began to think it was over, the nightmare was done, I had freed my room of this course. Then my room began to shake violently. I stood only to fall back down and was shook side to side with my room. The posters were ripped from my wall and pulled into the darkness of the closet. My sheets and window curtains whizzed past my head as they were engulfed. I began to slide across my carpet and immediately grabbed hold of the legs of my bed as a natural instinct. I felt as if something was pulling my legs towards the closet but nothing was there. I screamed for help, praying that my mom or brother or one of the neighbors would hear me and come to my rescue. It didn’t seem as though that would happen. I stopped screaming for help and decided to try my plan.
I opened my mouth, still clutching tightly onto the leg of my bed, and yelled into the darkness of the closet, “Leave me alone! Leave my house, leave this town, leave this world! You aren’t welcome here!”
The closet door slammed shut and the force yanking on my feet vanished. I freed my grasp from the leg and sat upright, scrambling against my wall, watching the closet with every step I made. My heart felt as though it would burst from my chest, my breathing ceased to nothing more than a pant. Sweat covered my face and hands and I quickly rubbed the perspiration from my face. It was over. Finally, the nightmare I had experienced was over.
I rested my head against the wall, closing my eyes and taking long, deep breaths. I glanced at my clock. It switched over to 12:01 A.M. and I was greatly relieved as a smile stretched across my face followed by a slight laugh. It was done, his spirit was gone as well as his victims. They could all rest in peace wherever they were heading. It was a happy ending to a terrifying story.
The closet door creaked open right at that moment. I quickly shot my eyes towards it, my body filling with dread for a second time.
“You want me to leave John?” a raspy, whining voice in the dark asked me. “I can’t leave without a going away present!”
My eyes widened as a gust of wind slammed into my body and a maniacal, piercing laugh shot from the darkness. A burnt, scarred, and bloodied face shot from the closet with a grin so terrifying it would make a grown man cry and with eyes redder than the fires of Hell. It flew right at me. Blackness surrounded me.
I awoke with bright, white light all around me. My vision was blurred and I quickly blinked my eyes in an attempt to pull them back into focus. I looked around the room I was in and froze. The walls, roof, and floor were all padded. I went to move my arms and found that I couldn’t. I looked at my chest and saw a white jacket wrapped around my torso, restricting my arms from movement. I began to panic and stood up, running against the walls, screaming for somebody to let me out.
“Help me! Somebody! Let me out of here! I’m not crazy! I don’t belong in here! I’m just a kid!”
I ran to the small window at the far side of the room and peered out. There was a doctor with his back turned to me talking with my mother. I could see her holding a Kleenex to her face and tears running down her cheeks. Confusion controlled my mind as I tried to remember how I got here. The last thing I remember was that face, that horrible, burned, nightmarish face coming at me.
I watched my mother’s lips and read them as best as I could. She was saying something about me mumbling that ghosts exist and a murdering ghost attacked me out of my closet and that I had saved all of the victims. Why didn’t I remember any of that? I saw her cry harder and she was escorted away by one of the guards. The doctor turned and looked into my window, right into my eyes. Fright overpowered my body as I stared into the same Hell-red eyes I had seen the night before. The doctor began to laugh and it grew louder and louder and louder, bringing pain to my ears as that shrill, maniacal laugh re-entered my brain and my memory.
I was trapped as his victim.
My entire body is shaking, drenched with sweat. Fear takes control of me, paralyzing my entire body. I try to ignore it, try to tell myself it isn’t real, but every single time I fail miserably. The voice continues to whisper as I hear its nails scratch on my door as if begging for me to let it out. It begins to speak louder and louder as if becoming enraged at being imprisoned. The scratching turns to banging as my door thrashes wildly in its hinges. I thought the days of the Boogeyman were over six years ago at the young age of ten when I stopped believing in make believe creatures and horrors in the night. As I lay in my bed, shaking with fear and pale with shock, I come to the realization that I must be hallucinating, monsters do not exist. It’s impossible for them to, they are stories told to get kids to behave or fall asleep and nothing more. Then again, is it possible to have a hallucination every night at the same time for the same duration of one painfully stretched out minute? I began to doubt my own theories.
The door continued to thrash about. Screams of pain and torture and maniacal laughter reverberated from inside the closet. I finally regained control of my body and immediately flung the covers over my head as I had done so many years ago in an attempt to feel protected from whatever stood on the other side of the sheets. My heart pounded in my chest with such force it felt as though it were in my throat, choking me. My pulse was incredibly fast as was my breathing. My fear was growing greater and greater by the second. I closed my eyes tight, trying to imagine a happier place than this, a happier thought. I remembered what my mom taught me to do when I was little in order to eliminate the fear. I began to count backwards from ten out loud. My voice shook with each syllable that pursed my lips.
“Ten…..”
The screams of pain echoed through my mind.
“Nine….”
A shrill laughter of horrendous enjoyment.
“Eight…”
Pounding against a wooden door.
“Seven….”
Fear crawling through my blood.
“Six…”
Darkness closing in around me.
“Five…”
Voices begging for safety.
“Four…”
My heart racing faster.
“Three…”
Fear never dying.
“Two…”
Brain pulsing.
“One…”
Silence.
I slowly slid the sheets from my head and peered at my closet door. It stood as still as it had one minute ago as if nothing had happened. I glanced at my alarm clock: 12:01 A.M. It always only lasted for one minute but it felt as though it lasted one hour. I stared at the door, relieved that the reoccurring nightmare had vanished yet again into the darkness from which it came. I was finally able to sleep.
The next day I awoke at eleven and grabbed some breakfast. I was home alone again. My mom was at her weekend job and my brother was out playing with his friends. I sighed and looked at the positive side; I didn’t have anyone to tell me to turn my music down. I quickly washed my plate and returned to my room where I plugged my Zune into my surround sound system and turned the speakers up to the point where I couldn’t hear myself think. I hopped onto my computer and an IM popped onto my screen. It was from my best friend Cameron. Shocked that he was even awake this early, I replied.
I closed out of my messenger and sat and thought for a while. What if, for once in his life, Cameron was actually right? What if my house was haunted? I began searching the web for haunting, ghosts, and various ghost legends. I found tons of cult sites and photo shopped pictures of ghosts but never any actual evidence of a ghost existing. That’s when I came across the blog of a sixteen year old girl who just recently moved out of the same city I lived in. I read through it, intrigued by the story she was telling.
My Ghost Experience
Four months ago, I lived in a two story house in a town six hours from my own. I had a room at the top of the stairs, the best one in the house, or so I thought. The first night I moved in, I noticed strange things happening such as various pictures and objects being moved around to different spots in my room or my make-up being spilled onto the floor. As my family had no pets and I was an only child, I was curious as to why this would happen. Eventually, more and more things would be moved around and I would come home to a bigger mess in my room. Then, one night, I heard voices and breathing come from inside of my closet. I thought I was having a nightmare and pinched myself to wake-up but I didn’t wake-up: it was real. The whispers grew to sounds of tortured screams and laughter. This event occurred every night for one month for one minute at midnight. The screams turned to pounding on my door and lights flickering on and off and yells. It became unbearable. One night it drove me so insane I flew out of my bed and yanked open my closet door. A gust of wind pushed me back against the wall and a scream of laughter echoed in my head as my lights flashed on and off and various pieces of my furniture were destroyed. Then, on my mirror, a message appeared as if somebody was writing it with a pen of blood but nobody was to be seen. It said “LEAVE THIS PLACE OR BE TRAPPED FOREVER!” My parents and I moved out the next day.
I read and re-read the blog over and over. This girl had experienced the same problem that I was experiencing now. Her story was so like mine it sent chills down my spine just thinking about it. I slowly turned to my closet and images of it shaking and pounding flashed through my mind. I shook my head and it looked normal again. I sighed heavily and stared at my computer screen, thinking. That’s when it hit me. This girl lived in the same house that I did now, a two story house and with a room at the top of the stairs. Seeing as how every house in my neighborhood was a different model and our neighborhood had the only two story houses in the small town, it had to be the same house.
I decided to run a search on my town and my house. What I came across chilled my blood and stopped my heart. My house was home to a serial killer that tortured teenagers twenty years ago. He kidnapped over one hundred local teens, brought them to his house, and tortured them until their bodies gave up. He then tossed their bodies in the second story bedroom, leaving them to rot. Once his location was discovered, the parents of the town broke into the man’s home and, when they discovered the bodies of their missing children, they tossed him into the closet and barred it shut, filling it with a nerve gas. The man died a very slow and painful death. Local legends say that laughter could be heard coming from the room as the man died. It took him one minute for his pathetic life to finally end, from midnight to 12:01.
I couldn’t believe what I had read. Everything pieced itself together like a puzzle. Ghosts are spirits of those that have unfinished business on Earth. Some are harmless and just make the area around them freezing while others are evil and, while they cannot touch you, they can touch objects and make noises and visions in order to harm a certain somebody in their presence. Those that are harmful are usually the spirits of druggies, convicts, maniacs, and, the most popular, serial killers. Sometimes spirits had to relive their deaths or crimes for eternity at a set time as a form of torture to their souls. That’s exactly what the screaming was that I had heard every night, the screams of his victims reliving their deaths over and over because their souls were taken from them by murder. The maniacal laughter was that of the murderous creep dying in the closet.
The mystery came together into one piece and it all made sense. Thinking about it, however, I regret being so nosey. Before I searched, it was just a horrible nightmare that occurred every night again and again. Now, it was the spirit of a murderer living in my closet, reliving his death again and again and again for all of eternity, his victim’s souls trapped to experience the same fate. Now, I needed to figure out a way to get rid of it.
With a short time of searching, I discovered a technique so simple it shocked me: ask the ghost to leave. Could it really be that simple? There was only one way to find out. I had to wait until the clock struck midnight that very night when I could try and make this spirit leave once and for all.
I sat on my bed, legs crossed, lights out, with a flashlight in my hand. Six Monster cans lay crushed across my floor, their contents digesting in my stomach to keep me awake until midnight. I glanced at my clock and my heart skipped a beat as I watched it revolve over to midnight and a realization hit me. It was a new day, a fresh start. Nothing that happened the previous day mattered. As of this moment, my new day was starting. What a terrible way to start a day.
Right on cue, the whispers began. That whiny voice played games with my mind, begging me to join it, begging for another victim. I fought against the urge to comply and stayed glued to my bed, staring at the empty, white door. The whispering ended quicker than usual and that’s when I knew something was different. Did it know what I was doing? I listened intently for the screaming and laughter but it didn’t come. Puzzled, I stood up and flicked on my flashlight. I moved towards the door and reached for the doorknob but froze in my steps hearing a female voice call out to me from behind it, echoing.
“Don’t open the door! You’ll let him free! Don’t let the Devil free!”
My mind raced with fear and terror. It was so packed full of various nightmares that it couldn’t even send the messages to my body parts to move. That’s when the laughter came. That horrible, ear piercing laughter. It grew louder and louder until I couldn’t bear it anymore and fell to the ground, gripping my burning ears. The closet door slowly opened and all I could see inside was darkness. The laughter stopped and I removed my hands from my ears, sliding with my back against my bed. I watched enough horror movies to know not to go sticking my head into newly opened doors.
For a few minutes nothing happened as I sat, watching the empty blackness. I began to think it was over, the nightmare was done, I had freed my room of this course. Then my room began to shake violently. I stood only to fall back down and was shook side to side with my room. The posters were ripped from my wall and pulled into the darkness of the closet. My sheets and window curtains whizzed past my head as they were engulfed. I began to slide across my carpet and immediately grabbed hold of the legs of my bed as a natural instinct. I felt as if something was pulling my legs towards the closet but nothing was there. I screamed for help, praying that my mom or brother or one of the neighbors would hear me and come to my rescue. It didn’t seem as though that would happen. I stopped screaming for help and decided to try my plan.
I opened my mouth, still clutching tightly onto the leg of my bed, and yelled into the darkness of the closet, “Leave me alone! Leave my house, leave this town, leave this world! You aren’t welcome here!”
The closet door slammed shut and the force yanking on my feet vanished. I freed my grasp from the leg and sat upright, scrambling against my wall, watching the closet with every step I made. My heart felt as though it would burst from my chest, my breathing ceased to nothing more than a pant. Sweat covered my face and hands and I quickly rubbed the perspiration from my face. It was over. Finally, the nightmare I had experienced was over.
I rested my head against the wall, closing my eyes and taking long, deep breaths. I glanced at my clock. It switched over to 12:01 A.M. and I was greatly relieved as a smile stretched across my face followed by a slight laugh. It was done, his spirit was gone as well as his victims. They could all rest in peace wherever they were heading. It was a happy ending to a terrifying story.
The closet door creaked open right at that moment. I quickly shot my eyes towards it, my body filling with dread for a second time.
“You want me to leave John?” a raspy, whining voice in the dark asked me. “I can’t leave without a going away present!”
My eyes widened as a gust of wind slammed into my body and a maniacal, piercing laugh shot from the darkness. A burnt, scarred, and bloodied face shot from the closet with a grin so terrifying it would make a grown man cry and with eyes redder than the fires of Hell. It flew right at me. Blackness surrounded me.
I awoke with bright, white light all around me. My vision was blurred and I quickly blinked my eyes in an attempt to pull them back into focus. I looked around the room I was in and froze. The walls, roof, and floor were all padded. I went to move my arms and found that I couldn’t. I looked at my chest and saw a white jacket wrapped around my torso, restricting my arms from movement. I began to panic and stood up, running against the walls, screaming for somebody to let me out.
“Help me! Somebody! Let me out of here! I’m not crazy! I don’t belong in here! I’m just a kid!”
I ran to the small window at the far side of the room and peered out. There was a doctor with his back turned to me talking with my mother. I could see her holding a Kleenex to her face and tears running down her cheeks. Confusion controlled my mind as I tried to remember how I got here. The last thing I remember was that face, that horrible, burned, nightmarish face coming at me.
I watched my mother’s lips and read them as best as I could. She was saying something about me mumbling that ghosts exist and a murdering ghost attacked me out of my closet and that I had saved all of the victims. Why didn’t I remember any of that? I saw her cry harder and she was escorted away by one of the guards. The doctor turned and looked into my window, right into my eyes. Fright overpowered my body as I stared into the same Hell-red eyes I had seen the night before. The doctor began to laugh and it grew louder and louder and louder, bringing pain to my ears as that shrill, maniacal laugh re-entered my brain and my memory.
I was trapped as his victim.
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