A strange tale
from Karen.......
This happened a long time ago when I was around 15 years old, but i can still remember it clearly....
My family had moved home and almost as soon as we'd settled in weird things started to happen. We would be woken in the night by terrible banging from downstairs, yet as soon as anyone got out of bed to check it would stop instantly!

When we went downstairs and opened the lounge door, our two pet dogs would run past us trembling and hide under the bed upstairs. This happened practically every night, along with footsteps coming up and down the stairs and various voices and laughing (and on one occasion moaning)
One of the main things that we (and everyone who came to the house) noticed was a horrible feeling of dread coming when down the stairs. About halfway down, it would feel as though something was standing behind you watching and it just felt like something bad ...

Anyway:- one evening I went to bed and in the middle of the night was woken by something holding me by the wrists and pulling me across the room towards the door.
I was the most frightened I had ever been and my heart was banging! I thought to myself

"If I go through that door, I'll die!"

Then, mercifully, I must have passed out....
When I woke again, it was morning and I was in my bed!
I am obviously aware that everyone will say it was just a bad dream, but I've had plenty of bad dreams and this just wasn't like one of those! It had a different quality to it that can't be put into words, but it seemed so real and it scared me for a long time.

My story doesn't end there however! I didn't tell anyone what had happened, because I didn't want to scare them: things were bad enough already!
A few years later I was talking to my sister about all the weird things that had happened when we lived at home and I told her about the dream. She looked shocked and said that exactly the same thing had happened to her! We also found that we had both turned round on the stairs and seen a black shadow leaning over the banister watching us. We both gave the same description of it: it was a large black silhouette of a man with hair in a seventies type afro style!
A tale from a US correspondent........

My story concerns an event that happened not too long ago....
I had just come home from school: I was upset because my teacher had
given me a 'referral', and I had been in BAC (Behavior Adjustment Class) all day. To calm myself down when I was wired like this I often played video games. About 5 minutes into the game I started getting chills down my neck. I paused the game and looked up into the hallway, but saw nothing.

I closed my eyes and said to myself "Calm down E**c, it's all going to be okay."
I returned to my game, thinking it was the AC unit giving me the chills, but then again I had the same shivery feeling. I paused the game once more and peered into the hallway:- coming out of my parents' room was a shadow. I thought to myself "Mom must have gotten off early today!" As I stared at the shadow the chills began to come and come, then the hairs on my neck stood up (that figure would have made anyone's hairs stick up!) By this time I was sweating. Finally I built up the courage to check it out. I slowly walked out my room door, but before I did I grabbed my Cross of Jesus which I have had for years, and still do today.


As I got closer to the door of my parents' room my hands shivered with fear. I looked down at the shadow and followed with my eyes to where it was coming from. I could see nothing: no-one who could be casting the pool of darkness on the floor. By this time I was literally frozen to the spot: but I soon snapped out of this when I heard the sound of a rattling gargle coming from the room.

That was the limit! I quickly dashed to my room, slammed the door shut and leaned on it holding the cross in my hands and praying. This was the only time I saw this unwelcome visitor, and I hope it will stay that way, I told my family this story and some have claimed to have had the same experience. Maybe it's a family curse: maybe it's just a coincidence.........who knows?

 

A story from US correspondent Kay....
The Abandoned Luncheonette!

In the early 1980's as a single Mom, my adolescent daughter and I lived in P------d , Oregon, U.S.A. and loved to take day trips to the Oregon Coast. On one such trip, I purchased 2 pieces of art work on lay-away and arranged to pick them up 2 weeks later. On the appointed day, we took another journey to the coastal town and spent a lovely day enjoying the sand, surf and salt air, as well as completing the purchase of the art work.

The coastal highway from P-------d to C-------n B----h at that time was two lanes wide and wound through beautiful old evergreen forests, but became somewhat desolate and a little scary for two females alone after dark. But we had our red Doberman, Genna, with us, as was often my custom when travelling without male companionship.


The return trip should have taken 2 hours, but partly from the sun and salt air, I became extremely drowsy and found it necessary to stop three times at turnouts to doze before proceeding. This added hazard of being less than alert added to our apprehension, as darkness descended. From past trips, I remembered an old frame building that housed a lunch counter and rock shop where my former husband and I had eaten years before and I promised my child we would stop for a bite to eat and coffee for me when we found it.

Sure enough, upon rounding a bend we came upon the somewhat dilapidated and weathered building and -----thank God-----the lights were on and the place was open for business. We entered and passed through the dusty rock shop into the lunchroom where we were greeted by the friendly elderly woman with dyed red hair whom I remembered from the previous visit. She greeted us warmly (we were the only customers) and, at my urgent request, quickly served me a cup of coffee. I ordered a sandwich: my daughter at first demurred, but the proproprietess convinced her to eat a grilled cheese sandwich and glass of milk. We chatted pleasantly while we ate, paid, left the restaurant, walked the dog and proceeded homeward: I was now adequately awake to drive the remaining 60 min. without incident.

About a month later, we again took a day-trip to the ocean on the same highway and decided to stop on the way home to express our gratitude to the old woman. Imagine our shock when we found the place burned and deserted! Not only that, but it gave every appearance of having been that way for a number of years! I took photos for which I am still searching and will send if I locate them. We went home,still puzzling over what had ocurred: we had not been halllucinating. The food was real, the coffee refreshing, the results beneficial....


About five years later, driving past the site, I summoned my courage (being at the time alone without a dog) and drove down a winding driveway which led down the side of the mountain between the dilapidated ruins and the highway. At the bottom, I found a run-down home occupied by a mountain man and his wife and asked it he had any information about the lunchroom. He said it had belonged to his mother: she had become senile, he said and had been placed in a nursing home. Subsequently her business had burned down. He could not (or would not!) give me dates when this might have happened.

To this day, I cannot help but wonder, did my daughter and I make a stop in the Twilight Zone?