I have a story to tell of my experience in what I strongly believe to be a haunted house on the shores of Lake Winnipesaukee. I am 21 year old female and this encounter took place the summer right before I turned 16, so with almost five years passed, I may be leaving out little tidbits here and there.
My uncle had rented a house on Lake Winnipesaukee near Weirs Beach and invited my dad, mom, little brother, and I to come up and chill out for a couple of days. The house looked completely normal from the outside and we even had our own private dock to moor our jetski. I was stoked beyond belief, eager to take photos, swim, ride, and bask in the epitome of a New England summer.
My uncle introduced his new girlfriend to us, a nice and all around easy going woman who happened to have some chronic lower back pains. She had a hard time going up and down the stairs (Keep this in mind as you read on). My uncle gave us the grand tour of the home, he had already been there for over a week before we arrived. The place was built at the turn of the 20th century, so it had some years on it. As I was walking through and observing my surroundings, I noticed that everything about the house seemed to be stuck in the 80s. There was nothing inherently creepy about that, but I noticed the caretakers of the residence left behind personal artifacts that probably didn't need to be there; there were framed portraits of twins in matching frilly, red dressed mounted in one of the rooms, their expressions were stoic and almost dead and their gaze seemed to follow you regardless of where you positioned yourself in the room. Another room was a designated solely for a little boy, with campy spaceship comforter, sheets, old alien figurines and model spaceships lining the shelves, and children's book that smelled of moth balls and a twinge of mildew. The attic hatch was also located right above the bed; that seemed a little out of place to me. This would obviously be my brother's room. The master bedroom where my uncle and his girlfriend were staying in looked normal and more up to date, although I didn't take that thorough of a peek.
There were only three bedrooms; my parents took the room with the creepy kids, my brother the spaceship room, and my uncle and his girlfriend stayed put in the master bedroom. There was no space for me upstairs, but there was a full sized pull out couch I had all to myself. I also have to add that when I entered the house the first thing I noticed was the ridiculous amount of mirrors that were hung up all over the downstairs. There were three in the living room alone where I slept. I kept wondering why this family felt the need to decorate their walls with mirrors.
I slept like a baby the first night, exhausted from the trip up and swimming earlier that afternoon. I woke up in the morning to find my mom making coffee in the kitchen. We were the only two awake this early so I joined her outside to watch the rising sun diminish the layer of fog hovering over the lake, revealing the dozens of small islands speckled in the distance. After a few minutes of silence she turned to me and said, "Something weird happened last night. Your dad is shrugging it off, but I was pretty freaked out." My mom is a very "feet on the ground" kind of person, believing there is a logical explanation for everything. "I was sleeping and I woke up to the sound of small feet running up and down the hallway. I could hear whispers and it honestly sounded like your brother. I told your father to go put him back to bed and when he went out into the hallway there was no one there. He was tucked in bed, fast sleep. You didn't hear anything, did you?" I didn't, I heard nothing from downstairs, even with my the couch being situated so close to the stairs. "I don't know, there's something off about this house, I have such a weird feeling and I never felt this way before." I assured my mom it probably was the house settling, but I couldn't ignore the goosebumps rising from my skin and the inclination I had to believe her. I promised her not to tell my brother because he is easily frightened and we didn't talk about it again.
The following night is when it got weird for me. I woke up twice that night. The first time was to the sound of scratching on the walls. I tried to play it off as little critters roaming behind the walls, but as I listened more closely the sounds weren't consistent with mice meandering about, they were long, drawn out, scratching, like fingernails. They subsided after a few moments and didn't return again that night or the remainder of my time there. I rose to grab some cranberry juice from the fridge and as soon as I opened the door and squatted down to search for the juice carton, I froze to the moaning of floorboards in the kitchen. Someone was in here with me, but if anyone from upstairs had come down, surely I would have heard them descending down the stairs. It sounded like whoever was on the other side of the refrigerator door was trying to sneak up on me. The creaking became louder as whatever was trying to make me shit my pants drew nearer. Then it was silent. Then every hair on my body stood up straight, goosebumps covered my flesh, and I felt a presence (it's a feeling similar to when you walk into a room when a TV has just turned on and your ears can faintly make out the high pitch frequency of the box booting itself up). My legs were screaming from squatting for too long but I was too scared to even close the door. I finally mustered the courage to shut it and no one was there on the other side to yell "Boo!" or laugh and say, "Gotcha!" The static charge immediately dissipated and I ran back to bed, taking shelter under the covers.
I drifted off to sleep and was whisked away to having a dream within a dream. In the dream, I rose slowly from the bed. Opposite the bed was an old school TV on the right with an antique arm chair on the left. There was something resting on the armchair; a silhouette of a person leaning forward with it's arms gripping the handles in a L shape, as if this figure was preparing to pounce on me. It waited, waited, and sat completely still until I became terrified in my own dream and attempted to wake myself up and it worked.
I confided about the prior nights events to my mom in the morning as we were walking through town. She merely shook her head, unsure of how to craft a convincing explanation or how to console a still terrified daughter. I didn't want to sleep alone that night, I was scared to look directly in those half a dozen mirrors mounted on the walls for fear of who might be there with me, and I certainly couldn't look at that armchair without thinking of that menacing black figure, watching me sleep, waiting...waiting...
The final night was a tipping point and I still get goosebumps thinking back on it to this day. I was awoken by the stairway light coming on. I heard the creak of footsteps and I was mentally prepared for there to be no one there, like the previous night. Luckily, my uncle's girlfriend came into view and I breathed a sigh of relief until I noticed something odd. She was descending the stairs in a very slow and controlled manner, her eyes wide open, her arms resting rigidly by her side. "What the fuck," I whispered into the covers that covered half of my face. She got to the bottom of the stairs and instead of going into the bathroom she turned slowly and faced my general direction. The living room and sun room that lead out to the dock was separated by a huge sliding glass door with no shades or curtains to block the pitch black darkness outside. I never slept facing that side. I stared up at her, shaking uncontrollably beneath the covers, trying not to cry, as she stared blankly at the sliding door. After about five minutes, she turned slowly back around and ascended the stairs in the same manner she did going down them. Her back was so stiff and arched I couldn't help but think the pain her back must have been would have been enough to rouse her. The staircase light switched off, and the room was once again plunged into darkness. The next morning I asked her if she was prone to sleep walking. "Uh, no," she answered, confused, "Why?" I said I was just wondering and she left it alone. "She drools and grinds her teeth a lot, but never sleep walks," my uncle chimed in.
I once again told my mom of my experience and per request she slept by my side on the sleeper sofa the next night and the following morning we packed our belongings and headed home. Our vacation was over and I was relieved I didn't have to spend another night in the godforsaken place. With the car packed up and all us piled in the car we drove away from the home. I took a moment to look back on the house one last time. My gaze was pulled towards an upstairs window, the spaceship room, where I caught the back of the head of a small boy moving away from the window, the curtains being yanked shut.
Submitted August 03, 2015 at 07:29AM by Ozioso http://ift.tt/1hee5qr nosleep
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