raimeyl:

raimeyl:

You know, I mention this once in a while in my tags (when it’s relevant) but I don’t think I ever talk about it here. So sure! I’d love to share my horrible childhood memories. Gathter ‘round, y'all. Ray has a story to tell.

So, some details you should know before I get into this: The house this takes place in has always been creepy.

Only nasty people seemed to stay there for any long period of time (my mom and I only stood for a few months).

It literally shared a large driveway with my grandparents house.T

his house is just outside of Ojai, along the 101 highway.

The river/woods that were across the highway (which is now mostly blocked off) was a gathering place for witches.

I was not aware of the witches until I was 22.

OKAY! NOW THAT THAT IS OUT OF THE WAY LETS BEGIN!

For most of my life I grew up next door to the creepy house. I usually didn’t pay much attention to it, but on the off chance I did, the little voice in my head would say “Yikes. That is a place full of badness.” Like, every house nearby was extremely quaint and the neighbors were nice. BUT THAT HOUSE was just… Off… It didn’t even look bad or anything. It was small, but honestly, it wasn’t run down or poorly managed. Regardless, it had bad vibes. But that didnt bother me, because I never had to live there. Right? WRONG. The moment the mean old man who lived there left and it went up for rent, my mom snatched up the house. Now, she wasn’t stupid. She felt the bad energy just as much as I did, but my grandparents were making it hard to live with them and she needed her own space. Since they were my babysitters it made sense that she lived as close as possible. Plus, it was SUPER AFFORDABLE because no decent person wanted to live there . I was never afraid to sleep on my own bed. I had been since I was four. It was nbd to me. But when we moved into the house that changed. It was a one bedroom, so we shared the room, but because of the layout, if I wanted to fit my bed, I had to be closer to the closet. And I noped the fuck out of bed each night to get into bed with my mom. I didn’t have a good reason. I just felt scared. All the time. This got to the point where she gave my bed to my grandparents for storage, because I refused to use it. Later my mom would set me up a desk with some art stuff, by the best window for getting light… It happened to be by the closet. I loved the desk. It was a Winnie The Pooh desk, with cute painted Eyores and Piglets on it. I trashed the desk. I didn’t want it by the closet but my mom wouldn’t move it so I trashed it and then said the floor was uneven and made the desk shake. She moved it to the far corner, where I wanted it. I never saw anything for a majority of the time we lived there. I just had a feeling of discomfort and dread. Then one night that changed.

Continuing from where I left off, most of the week building up to that night, little things happened that were just sort of… not good. My mom’s abusive EX was stalking her. My uncle’s dog had gotten out of the yard somehow and died.

But the weirdest thing had to be when my aunt (who is three years younger than me) had sleepwalked for the first and ONLY time in her life, into the closet after playing a game of hide-and-seek with me in her dreams. Her parents only found her after she had started calling out for me in the early morning, otherwise, she would have stood there until daybreak.

A few days later is when it happened.

My day had been normal. It had been totally fun and great. We went to the beach. Got food at the mall. We were planning for our October Disney trip. It was a pretty good day. When I went home to the creepy house, I didn’t expect anything bad to happen. I tucked into bed as usual, with my mother right beside me, and a little space heater (which is important) blowing on us for warmth. I laid my head back. I struggled to get to sleep because I was excited. I had literally just turned seven that month and in another month I was going to Disneyland. I looked around my room because it was better than staring at the ceiling and eventually I was settled enough to doze off.

Now, I mention looking around the room, because it’s important. The space heater is important. These stupid things that I normally wouldn’t care about were important.

Why?

Because when I went to bed that night, my closet door was closed.

I woke up from a dreamless (or at least I assume it was dreamless) sleep sometime in the late evening or early morning. No reason. No sound that I can recall woke me up. I wasn’t thirsty, or hungry, or needed to pee. I just woke up. I sat up in my bed, looked around, and tried to get comfy again so I could go back to sleep. But as I began to recline back again my eyes landed on the closet door, which was now mostly ajar.

Old houses don’t have the best doors, but the closet door worked. The door locked. I never let my mom leave it open. If she tried I would cry until she closed it. So I knew, for a fact, that the door should have been closed. I was closed… Except that now it wasn’t, and I was sitting in bed, staring deep into the closet with only the vague outlines of my autumn clothes and darkness looking back.

Now, I am sure that I wasn’t staring for longer than a minute or two. Five at the very most. But it felt like an hour. And as I stared into the closet, something stepped out. It wasn’t a solid something. Not a complete arm, or leg, or anything. It was more like a shadow, but if the shadow had mass. It first I thought my eyes were just doing that thing that happens when you stare into the dark too long. You know how the shadows gather at the corners of your eyes until you think you’re starting to go blind? But that wasn’t the case. Because it never moved like… that…

I didn’t rub my eyes or blink to check. I was too afraid to move, because the shadow that stepped out of my closet, crossed in front of the window. I watched it move, knowing that shadows didn’t move that way. They didn’t walk or slink across floors like something alive. But this one did. It stood at the foot of my bed, unmoving, and for a moment I thought maybe I was just seeing things. But then it began to move again. It crossed in front of my bed, moving past my desk where we kept the space heater (the one that I told you was important), and I remember watching the red hot bars grow dim as if this shadow mass was obstructing their glow.

I tried to call out to my mom, but honestly, I was so afraid that I might have just whimpered instead. I know I tried to shake her awake, but again, I probably didn’t move much. I was terrified. It came around from the front of the bed to my side, looming as it stood there. I remember being able to see through it somewhat, and there was another window by my side of the bed where I could see the sky and out neighbors trees. I finally found enough sense, and courage to hide beneath my blanket.

I don’t know how long I was under them. (probably not as long as I thought). But I was waiting for it to leave. I didn’t want it to be there. Some part of me knew that it was going to be there, but another part of me hoped it was gone. I came out from under the blankets, unsure of what to expect.



It was my misfortune that the shadow was still there. Worse, it knew I was hiding, and it waited there. And once I was lying down, trying to pretend I couldn’t see it anymore, it knelt down until it’s “face”[?] was level with mine.

I don’t remember screaming. I don’t remember going back to bed. I do remember waking up in my grandparent’s living room. Neither my mom or my grandparents can remember who picked me up that morning, or if my mom dropped me off before going to work. Any time I ask, no one can really recall it. We assume that one of them had to have brought me there. No one is sure though. It wasn’t long after that we moved out of the small house and back in with my grandparents. Raven, my aunt, never did go sleepwalking again. And I, for nearly 20 years, have been afraid of the closet ever since.

Ojai is one of a few locations that claims it is the center of the universe. I don’t know how true that is, but a lot of wierd shit happens in the rural areas there. My house and the little creepy house were in a rural area. The river bottom was the place I played the most as a child, and witches used it to meet in the night. I, rather ironically, happen to be a witch now. I have been since I was 20. I did it because it made sense to me more than most religious, but mostly it’s because I like being able to protect myself from the shadowy or odd things that I have been able to see ever since that thing in the closet came to me when I was seven years old.