Screams from the Spare Room

From: Anonymous
Story type: Ghost
Location: Notts
Source: Form Submission

This story has been told to my friends many times, but has never been written down. It is the account of my first and last encounter with the paranormal. Thankfully, I look at it now as an experience I am glad I encountered. It is ALL true.

In the Autumn of '92 I moved south from the North-East of England to Nottingham in order to find work. The good will of my girlfriend's family meant I didn't have to be in any rush to find accomodation closer to the city, but being out of work, I had long lonely hours in a house I didn't know, which stood since the mid 1600's.

It was a renovated farm-house with 7 bedrooms and a conver- ted attic comprising 3 bedrooms and a bathroom. Whilst the family were out at work, I would do stuff you can't feel comfortable doing whilst they were in. Like bathing with the music on, or showering with the door open. It was during one of these innocent day's on my own, where I felt I was not the only one in the attic.

The bath water was running, and the music was on, and I went to the closet to fetch a towel. The spare room door which I had closed and shut tight not 2 minutes earlier stood ajar the full swing. I was gripped with total and utter fear, because in order to manually open the door, it had to be pushed with force because of the thickness of the carpet. I reached out, and pulled the door closed, and heard the latch click. Whilst in the bath, I heard another noise which made me sit rigid in there for what seemed like an age.

It sounded like the door I had just closed, begin to re-open. I could feel my heart throb in my mouth, and just as soon as it started, the feeling of panic went. I finished in the bathroom, and went downstairs. I told the story to my girl- friend, and she told me not to be so stupid. I was "paranoid". 2 weeks went past, and although I never forgot it, I was never worried, until one night when her parents were away on holiday. There had been a party, and one of our friends had been ill in my girlfriends bed. She had nothing to drink and had felt fine until the party moved upstairs next to the spare room. She was sick in the bed quite violently, and when she awoke the next day, we found she had no recollection of what had gone on.

That night, my girlfriend and I stayed in the spare room as the smell of sick was still apparent in her room. It got to about 11.30, and I was finishing off a chapter of Papillon which I was reading at the time. The room suddenly turned cold and I was drawn to look at something which caught the corner of my eye as I lay in bed. She saw it too. It was a shadow about 8 feet in length, of a torso, shoulders and head on the wall directly next to me. It seemed to sway and shudder. The only light that could have cast this shadow, was behind me and next to her. We tried frantically to move anything that may be casting the shadow. Duvet, pillows, even the lampstand, but the shadow was still, save for it's shuddering. She then said in a terrified tone "Why won't it go away? What is it?". It slid down the wall, and into the shadow cast by the bed. As you can imagine, getting to sleep was a little problematic that night, but at 2 o'clock I was woken by a scream. It sounded like a man, and far away, but it was loud enough to wake me, but not my girlfriend.

I laid awake 'til gone 3 and then drifted off again. Until 4. We both screamed out, and blamed each other for what we had felt. "Don't you EVER grab my foot like that" she said, crying "It wasn't me" I declared " You did it to me!!". In the pitch black of the room, at the foot of the bed, we both saw a white figure, dropping further and further beneath the bed. What we had felt, was our feet being tugged, as though to pull us out of bed. We stayed awake until it became light, and then slept until noon.

It was shortly after that,that I moved out, finding somewhere to live in the City. I found out, that her sister-in-law, who regularly came to the house, would not venture up to the top floor because she felt threatened by something behind the door in the spare room. She couldn't explain what it was, only that she felt it there, and no-where else in the house. A psychic went to the house, and reported feeling a troubled soul, lost, on the top floor. She said he was dressed in white, was a sailor and he knew he shouldn't be there. That was almost 4 years ago now. Today, the house is lived in by someone else, the girl and I are no longer together, and I have no reason to venture back to that neck of the woods. Me? I live with my girlfriend, in my house which creaks and groans like an old tree. But they are sounds that I recognise.

Hope you enjoyed it.