Bedtime is supposed to be a happy event

Bedtime is supposed to be a happy event for a tired child; for me it was terrifying. While some children might complain about being put to bed before they have finished watching a film or playing their favourite video game, when I was a child, night time was something to truly fear. Somewhere in the back of my mind it still is.
As someone who is trained in the sciences, I cannot prove that what happened to me was objectively real, but I can swear that what I experienced was genuine horror. A fear which in my life, I'm glad to say, has never been equalled. I will relate it to you all now as best I can, make of it what you will, but I'll be glad to just get it off of my chest.
I can't remember exactly when it started, but my apprehension towards falling asleep seemed to correspond with my being moved into a room of my own. I was 8 years old at the time and until then I had shared a room, quite happily, with my older brother. As is perfectly understandable for a boy 5 years my senior, my brother eventually wished for a room of his own and as a result, I was given the room at the back of the house.
It was a small, narrow, yet oddly elongated room, large enough for a bed and a couple of chest of drawers, but not much else. I couldn't really complain because, even at that age, I understood that we did not have a large house and I had no real cause to be disappointed, as my family was both loving and caring. It was a happy childhood, during the day.
A solitary window looked out onto our back garden, nothing out of the ordinary, but even during the day the light which crept into that room seemed almost hesitant.
As my brother was given a new bed, I was given the bunk beds which we used to share. While I was upset about sleeping on my own, I was excited at the thought of being able to sleep in the top bunk, which seemed far more adventurous to me.
From the very first night I remember a strange feeling of unease creeping slowly from the back of my mind. I lay on the top bunk, staring down at my action figures and cars strewn across the green-blue carpet. As imaginary battles and adventures took place between the toys on the floor, I couldn't help but feel that my eyes were being slowly drawn towards the bottom bunk, as if something was moving in the corner of my eye. Something which did not wish to be seen.
The bunk was empty, impeccably made with a dark blue blanket tucked in neatly, partially covering two rather bland white pillows. I didn't think anything of it at the time, I was a child, and the noise slipping under my door from my parent's television, bathed me in a warm sense of safety and well-being.
I fell asleep.
When you awaken from a deep sleep to something moving, or stirring, it can take a few moments for you to truly understand what is happening. The fog of sleep hangs over your eyes and ears even when lucid.
Something was moving, there was no doubt about that.
At first I wasn't sure what it was. Everything was dark, almost pitch black, but there was enough light creeping in from outside to outline that narrowly suffocating room. Two thoughts appeared in my mind almost simultaneously. The first was that my parents were in bed because the rest of the house lay both in darkness, and silence. The second thought turned to the noise. A noise which had obviously woken me.
As the last cobwebs of sleep withered from my mind, the noise took on a more familiar form. Sometimes the simplest of sounds can be the most unnerving, a cold wind whistling through a tree outside, a neighbour's footsteps uncomfortably close, or, in this case, the simple sound of bed sheets rustling in the dark.
That was it; bed sheets rustling in the dark as if some disturbed sleeper was attempting to get all too comfortable in the bottom bunk. I lay there in disbelief thinking that the noise was either my imagination, or perhaps just my pet cat finding somewhere comfortable to spend the night. It was then that I noticed my door, shut as it had been as I'd fallen asleep.
Perhaps my mum had checked in on me and the cat had sneaked in to my room then.
Yes, that must have been it. I turned to face the wall, closing my eyes in the vain hope that I could fall back to sleep. As I moved, the rustling noise from underneath me ceased. I thought that I must have disturbed my cat, but quickly I realised that the visitor in the bottom bunk was much less mundane than my pet trying to sleep, and much more sinister.
As if alerted to, and disgruntled by, my presence, the disturbed sleeper began to toss and turn violently, like a child having a tantrum in their bed. I could hear the sheets twist and turn with increasing ferocity. Fear then gripped me, not like the subtle sense of unease I had experienced earlier, but now potent and terrifying. My heart raced as my eyes panicked, scanning the almost impenetrable darkness.
I let out a cry.
As most young boys do, I instinctively shouted on my mother. I could hear something stir on the other side of the house, but as I began to breath a sigh of relief that my parents were coming to save me, the bunk beds suddenly started to shake violently as if gripped by an earthquake, scraping against the wall. I could hear the sheets below me thrashing around as if tormented by malice. I did not want to jump down to safety as I feared the thing in the bottom bunk would reach out and grab me, pulling me into the darkness, so I stayed there, white knuckles clenching my own blanket like a shroud of protection. The wait seemed like an eternity.
The door finally, and thankfully, burst open, and I lay bathed in light while the bottom bunk, the resting place of my unwanted visitor, lay empty and peaceful.
I cried and my mother consoled me. Tears of fear, followed by relief, streamed down my face. Yet, through all of the horror and relief, I did not tell her why I was so upset. I cannot explain it, but it was as though whatever had been in that bunk would return if I even so much as spoke of it, or uttered a single syllable of its existence. Whether that was the truth, I do not know, but as a child I felt as if that unseen menace remained close, listening.
My mother lay in the empty bunk, promising to stay there until morning. Eventually my anxiety diminished, tiredness pushed me back towards sleep, but I remained restless, waking several times momentarily to the sound of rustling bed sheets.
I remember the next day wanting to go anywhere, be anywhere, but in that narrow suffocating room. It was a Saturday and I played outside, quite happily with my friends. Although our house was not large we were lucky to have a long sloping garden in the back. We played there often, as much of it was overgrown and we could hide in the bushes, climb in the huge sycamore tree which towered above all else, and easily imagine ourselves in the throws of a grand adventure, in some untamed exotic land.
As fun as it all was, occasionally my eye would turn to that small window; ordinary, slight, and innocuous. But for me, that thin boundary was a looking glass into a strange, cold pocket of dread. Outside, the lush green surroundings of our garden filled with the smiling faces of my friends could not extinguish the creeping feeling clawing its way up my spine; each hair standing on end. The feeling of something in that room, watching me play, waiting for the night when I would be alone; eagerly filled with hate.
It may sound strange to you, but by the time my parents ushered me back into that room for the night, I said nothing. I didn't protest, I didn't even make an excuse as to why I couldn't sleep there. I simply and sullenly walked into that room, climbed the few steps into the top bunk and then waited. As an adult I would be telling everyone about my experience, but even at that age I felt almost silly to be talking about something which I really had no evidence for. I would be lying, however, if I said this was my primary reason; I still felt that this thing would be enraged if I so much as spoke of it.
It's funny how certain words can remain hidden from your mind, no matter how blatant or obvious they are. One word came to me that second night, lying there in the darkness alone, frightened, aware of a rotten change in the atmosphere; a thickening of the air as if something had displaced it. As I heard the first casual twists of the bed sheets below, the first anxious increase of my heartbeat at the realisation that something was once again in the bottom bunk, that word, a word which had been sent into exile, filtered up through my consciousness, breaking free of all repression, gasping for air screaming, etching, and carving itself into my mind.
“Ghost”.
As this thought came to me, I noticed that my unwelcome visitor had ceased moving. The bed sheets lay calm and dormant, but they had been replaced by something far more hideous. A slow, rhythmic, rasping breath heaved and escaped from the thing below. I could imagine its chest rising and falling with each sordid, wheezing, and garbled breath. I shuddered, and hoped beyond all hope that it would leave without occurrence.
The house lay, as it had the previous night, in a thick blanket of darkness. Silence prevailed, all but for the perverted breath of my, as yet, unseen bunkmate. I lay there terrified. I just wanted this thing to go, to leave me alone.
What did it want?
Then something unmistakably chilling transpired; it moved. It moved in a way different from before. When it threw itself around in the bottom bunk it seemed, unrestrained, without purpose, almost animalistic. This movement, however, was driven by awareness, with purpose, with a goal in mind. For that thing lying there in the darkness, that thing which seemed intent on terrorising a young boy, calmly and nonchalantly sat up. Its laboured breathing had become louder as now only a mattress and a few flimsy wooden slats separated my body from the unearthly breath below.
I lay there, my eyes filled with tears. A fear which mere words cannot relate to you or anyone else coursed through my veins. I would not have believed that this fear could have been heightened, but I was so wrong. I imagined what this thing would look like, sitting there listing from below my mattress, hoping to catch the slightest hint that I was awake. Imagination then turned to an unnerving reality. It began to touch the wooden slats which my mattress sat on. It seemed to caress them carefully, running what I imagined to be fingers and hands across the surface of the wood.
Then, with great force, it prodded angrily between two slats, into the mattress. Even through the padding, it felt as though someone had viciously stuck their fingers into my side. I let out an almighty cry and the wheezing, shaking, and moving thing in the bunk below replied in kind by violently vibrating the bunk as it had done the night before. Small flakes of paint powdered onto my blanket from the wall as the frame of the bed scraped along it, backwards and forwards.
Once again I was bathed in light, and there stood my mother, loving, caring as she always was, with a comforting hug and calming words which eventually subdued my hysteria. Of course she asked what was wrong, but I could not say, I dared not say. I simply said one word over and over and over again.
“Nightmare”.
This pattern of events continued for weeks, if not months. Night after night I would awaken to the sound of rustling sheets. Each time I would scream so as to not provide this abomination with time to prod and 'feel' for me. With each cry the bed would shake violently, stopping with the arrival of my mother who would spend the rest of the night in the bottom bunk, seemingly unaware of the sinister force torturing her son nightly.
Along the way I managed to feign illness a few times and come up with other less-than-truthful reasons for sleeping in my parents' bed, but more often than not I would be alone for the first few hours of each night in that place. The room where the light from outside did not sit right. Alone with that thing.
With time you can become desensitised to almost anything, no matter how horrific. I had come to realise that, for whatever reason, this thing could not harm me when my mother was present. I am sure the same would have been said for my father, but as loving as he was, waking him from sleep was almost impossible.
After a few months I had grown accustomed to my nightly visitor. Do not mistake this for some unearthly friendship, I detested the thing. I still feared it greatly as I could almost sense its desires and its personality, if you could call it that; one filled with a perverted and twisted hatred yet longing for me, of perhaps all things.
My greatest fears were realized in the winter. The days grew short, and the longer nights merely provided this wretch with more opportunities. It was a difficult time for my family. My Grandmother, a wonderfully kind and gentle woman, had deteriorated greatly since the death of my Grandfather. My mother was trying her best to keep her in the community as long as possible, however, dementia is a cruel and degenerative illness, robbing a person of their memories one day at a time. Soon she recognised none of us, and it became clear that she would need to be moved from her house to a nursing home.
Before she could be moved, my Grandmother had a particularly difficult few nights and my mother decided that she would stay with her. As much as I loved my Grandmother and felt nothing but anguish at her illness, to this day I feel guilty that my first thoughts were not of her, but of what my nightly visitor may do should it become aware of my mother's absence; her presence being the one thing which I was sure was protecting me from the full horror of this thing's reach.
I rushed home from school that day and immediately wrenched the bed sheets and mattress from the lower bunk, removing all of the slats and placing an old desk, a chest of drawers, and some chairs which we kept in a cupboard where the bottom bunk used to be. I told my father I was 'making an office' which he found adorable, but I would be damned if I'd give that thing a place to sleep for one more night.
As darkness approached, I lay there knowing my mother was not in the house. I did not know what to do. My only impulse was to sneak into her jewellery box and take a small family crucifix which I had seen there before. While my family was not very religious, at that age I still believed in God and hoped that somehow this would protect me. Although fearful and anxious, while gripping the crucifix under my pillow tightly in one hand, sleep eventually came and as I drifted off to dream, I hoped that I would awaken in the morning without incidence. Unfortunately, that night was the most terrifying of all.
I woke gradually. The room was once again dark. As my eyes adjusted I could gradually make out the window and the door, and the walls, some toys on a shelf and... Even to this day I shudder to think of it, for there was no noise. No rustling of sheets. No movement at all. The room felt lifeless. Lifeless, yet not empty.
The nightly visitor, that unwelcome, wheezing, hate-filled thing which had terrorised me night after night, was not in the bottom bunk, it was in my bed! I opened my mouth to scream, but nothing came out. Utter terror had shaken the very sound from my voice. I lay motionless. If I could not scream, I did not want to let it know I was awake.
I had not yet seen it, I could only feel it. It was obscured under my blanket. I could see its outline, and I could feel its presence, but I dared not look. The weight of it pressed down on top of me, a sensation I will never forget. When I say that hours passed, I do not exaggerate. Laying there motionless, in the darkness, I was every bit a scared and frightened young boy.
If it had been during the summer months it would have been light by then, but the grasp of winter is long and unrelenting, and I knew it would be hours before sunrise; a sunrise which I yearned for. I was a timid child by nature, but I reached a breaking point, a moment where I could wait no more, where I could survive under this intimately deviant abomination no longer.
Fear can sometimes wear you out, make you threadbare, a shell of nerves leaving only the slightest trace of you behind. I had to get out of that bed! Then I remembered, the crucifix! My hand still lay underneath the pillow, but it was empty! I slowly moved my wrist around to find it, minimising as best I could the sound and vibrations caused, but it could not be found. I had either knocked it off of the top bunk, or it had...I could not even bear to think of it, been taken from my hand.
Without the crucifix I lost any sense of hope. Even at such a young age, you can be acutely aware of what death is, and intensely frightened of it. I knew I was going to die in that bed if I lay there, dormant, passive, doing nothing. I had to leave that room behind, but how? Should I leap from the bed and hope that I make it to the door? What if it is faster than me? Or should I slowly slip out of that top bunk, hoping to not disturb my uncanny bedfellow?
Realizing that it had not stirred when I moved, trying to find the crucifix, I began to have the strangest of thoughts.
What if it was asleep?
It hadn't so much as breathed since I had woken up. Perhaps it was resting, believing that it had finally got me. That I was finally in its grasp. Or perhaps it was toying with me, after all it had been doing just that for countless nights, and now with me under it, pinned against my mattress with no mother to protect me, maybe it was holding off, savouring its victory until the last possible moment. Like a wild animal savouring its prey.
I tried to breathe as shallowly as possible, and mustering every ounce of courage I could, I reached over slowly with my right hand and began to peel the blanket off of me. What I found under those covers almost stopped my heart. I did not see it, but as my hand moved the blanket, it brushed against something. Something smooth and cold. Something which felt unmistakably like a gaunt hand.
I held my breath in terror as I was sure it must now have known that I was awake.
Nothing.
It did not stir; it felt dead. After a few moments I placed my hand carefully further down the blanket and felt a thin, poorly formed forearm, my confidence and almost twisted sense of curiosity grew as I moved down further to a disproportionately larger bicep muscle. The arm was outstretched lying across my chest, with the hand resting on my left shoulder as if it had grabbed me in my sleep. I realised that I would have to move this cadaverous appendage if I even so much as hoped to escape its grasp.
For some reason, the feeling of torn, ragged clothing on the shoulder of this night time invader stopped me in my tracks. Fear once again swelled in my stomach and in my chest as I recoiled my hand in disgust at the touch of straggled, oily hair.
I could not bring myself to touch its face, although I wonder to this very day what it would have felt like.
Dear God it moved.
It moved. It was subtle, but its grip on my shoulder and across my body strengthened. No tears came, but God how I wanted to cry. As its hand and arm slowly coiled around me, my right leg brushed along the cool wall which the bed lay against. Of all that happened to me in that room, this was the strangest. I realised that this clutching, rancid thing which drew great delight from violating a young boy's bed, was not entirely on top of me. It was sticking out from the wall, like a spider striking from its lair.
Suddenly its grip moved from a slow tightening to a sudden squeeze, it pulled and clawed at my clothes as if frightened that the opportunity would soon pass. I fought against it, but its emaciated arm was too strong for me. Its head rose up writhing and contorting under the blanket. I now realised where it was taking me, into the wall! I fought for my dear life, I cried and suddenly my voice returned to me, yelling, screaming, but no one came.
Then I realised why it was so eager to suddenly strike, why this thing had to have me now. Through my window, that window which seemed to represent so much malice from outside, streaked hope; the first rays of sunshine. I struggled further knowing that if I could just hold on, it would soon be gone. As I fought for my life, the unearthly parasite shifted, slowly pulling itself up my chest, its head now poking out from under the blanket, wheezing, coughing, rasping. I do not remember its features, I simply remember its breath against my face, foul and as cold as ice.
As the sun broke over the horizon, that dark place, that suffocating room of contempt was washed, bathed in sunlight.
I passed out as its scrawny fingers encircled my neck, squeezing the very life from me.
I awoke to my father offering to make me some breakfast, a wonderful sight indeed! I had survived the most horrible experience of my life until then, and now. I moved the bed away from the wall, leaving behind the furniture I had believed would stop that thing from taking a bed. Little did I think that it would try to take mine...and me.
Weeks passed without incident, yet on one cold, frostbitten night I awoke to the sound of the furniture where the bunk beds used to be, vibrating violently. In a moment it passed, I lay there sure I could hear a distant wheezing coming from deep within the wall, finally fading into the distance.
I have never told anyone this story before. To this day I still break out in a cold sweat at the sound of bed sheets rustling in the night, or a wheeze brought on by a common cold, and I certainly never sleep with my bed against a wall. Call it superstition if you will but as I said, I cannot discount conventional explanations such as sleep paralysis, hallucination, or that of an over-active imagination, but what I can say is this: The following year I was given a larger room on the other side of the house and my parents took that strangely suffocating, elongated place as their bedroom. They said they didn't need a large room, just one big enough for a bed and a few things.

Hibiscus Coast

Many a summers holidays of my childhood were spent at the seaside resort towns of the Hibiscus Coast. When my father retired in 1992, my parents bought a cottage at one of these pretty coastal villages to escape the crime and congestion of the city, with us, their 3 teenage children.

Easter, Christmas and New Years would draw many tourists to the sleepy seaside settlements of the South coast and within days hotels, caravan parks and camping grounds would be filled with holiday makers keen to pursuit the outdoor activities on offer.

Unfortunately visiting a place and actually living there all year round can be very different, a lesson that we had to learn the hard way...

When the summer season drew to a close, the tourists would load up their cars and trailers and return to the cities. The town would become vacant overnight. The strong northeasterly wind would blow, leaving stinging blue-bottles and jellyfish on the beaches and the windswept coast with its rugged coastline and harsh vegetation would withdraw back into isolation.

Our house, fittingly named 'Hideaway' by previous owners lay nestled at the bottom of a green valley, which meant for cold winters and mosquito infested summers. Originally intended to be a holiday home, It was a single story dwelling built in the early 70's and had the appearance of being slapped together in a hurry on a shoe-string budget of materials, revealed by its poor plaster work, stable doors and steel wire mesh for burglar guards. Nevertheless, my parents felt it possessed a rustic charm and fell in love with the garden beautifully decorated with an assorted array of fruit trees, bougainvilleas, orchids and strelitzias. What was not so charming was the surrounding wild banana and sugar cane plantation, characteristic of Kwa-Zulu Natal, teeming with cane rats, spiders and deadly snakes.

From the day that we moved in the strange noises began. We were sitting in the lounge having a rest from a long, hard day of unpacking and moving heavy furniture when we first heard the loud thumping in the ceiling. Like someone banging violently on the wood board with their fist it resonated from one side of the lounge to the other. We sat in shocked silence looking up, listening, then exchanging horrified glances. My dad relieved the tension by suggesting it was likely just an iguana (large lizard) living in the ceiling. The thumps, bangs and scratches often accompanied by sweeping sounds would occur randomly throughout our 5 year residence, waking us up in the early hours of the morning.

My room, an obvious later addition to the house was constructed from cinder blocks, not bricks. Sometime between switching off my bedside lamp and falling asleep I would often hear tapping on my bedroom window. It sounded like little pebbles were being tossed up against the glass. Every so often upon pulling back the curtains to investigate I would see nothing but the pitch black of the night outside.

One evening whilst home alone something disturbing happened. I was sitting up late watching TV around 11 pm when I noticed the kitchen door handle turn downwards and the door swung open. Sitting directly oppose the door only about 3 meters away I was faced with nothing but the silhouette of the backyard mulberry tree in the moonlight. The night was still with not a breath of wind. Although the security gate was locked I didn't feel reassured. Had it been a would-be intruder the German Shepard next door surely would have barked his head off. Nothing, just silence. I felt as though a million eyes were on me and I slammed the door, locked it, turned on all the lights and the sound on the TV up. My parents only returned home hours later much to my dismay.

Before this, my older sister had often complained that she got the feeling of being chased when following the garden path down to the kitchen door when coming home late at night. I got this feeling even in the daytime.

Shortly before our house was sold in 1996 the thumping in the ceiling become louder and more aggressive. Around this time the geyser (water heater) in my parents en-suite bathroom stopped working. It also happened to be the only room with a trap door to the ceiling. My sister's husband, an electrician, came to repair the geyser and had to access the roof to fix it. Knowing he was an avid reptile collector we, being so desperate to rid the house of its menace, asked him to catch the iguana at the same time. After fixing the geyser he came down from the ladder and didn't look impressed. He remarked that the ceiling was cleaner than the house and there was no lizard or rats or animal droppings for that matter. The noises still continued the following night.

It was only after we left that we finally admitted to ourselves that something wasn't right about that cottage or its gardens. My mom even confessed to me that she had seen the ghost of a woman dressed as a maid coming hurriedly down the garden pathway one bright and sunny morning. The woman initially appeared solid and then faded the closer she got to the house.

Years later I came to know a little about the area's history. One of my former work colleagues had grown up in a township not far away. Local legend has it that the area was occupied by a tribe of cannibals and that Zulu's walking along the beach in passing would see strange glowing lights from the hills. Not only were the tribe cannibals but reputed to use human body parts for witchcraft. The name of the village directly translates into 'bad village,' a name given by the fearless warrior Shaka himself, King of the Zulus. Through his reign the village saw much bloodshed and he succeeded in almost completely wiping out the tribe 200 years ago.

The small stretch of road that runs through the town is also notorious for horrific road accidents. This has always puzzled us as it is seemingly a flat, straight stretch of road.

Last year I took my dad on a drive down the Hibiscus coast to relive our happy memories there one last time. My dad in ailing health, my mom having already passed on and my siblings living their own lives. We were sad to see how forgotten the village had become, its tourism ruined from the highway that now bypasses it.

Our little house too, seemed neglected and its gardens overgrown, standing empty and up for sale. Hideaway would always hold a special place in my heart as it was the last home we had all lived together as a family. I can never be sure if it really had a restless spirit or whether we shared our home with unseen creatures, but the bittersweet memories still haunt me in many ways.

Helping Hands

To say that we have had a busy few days is stating things lightly.

After mom's surgery last week, Gran has been very active around mom. She does not hang in the passage; she is constantly where mom is. Friday afternoon Tim asked me at one point if mom was sitting in the lounge, so I did not even think about it, I picked up my phone, switched it to camera and took a snap of mom so he could see where she was sitting.

Now, just to clarify, Gran hates cameras, apparently always did, just like Charlie, so she does not want any pictures taken of her. Tim told me she was hovering around mom, trying to comfort her, but I thought she would read my intentions and move out of the way when I took the picture. Only, it seems this time, she had decided it might be OK for her daughter to know she was there.

Tim sent me a message saying Gran was very unimpressed because she could not get out of the way fast enough, and that I had caught her on "film". I told him I had looked at the picture and could not see anything out of the ordinary, and then he answered: "Look at your mom's shadow. Since when do shadows have eyes?" Right then I could clearly see a face looking right at me. When I took my phone and showed it to my mom, she immediately put her finger on the shadow. She could see the face without any help.

Since mom is unable to move around too much right now, I had to do all of the errands last weekend to get ready for our Christmas leave. I was up and down with the boys the entire day on Saturday, and of course, Charlie was with us. On Sunday, my sister and her husband hosted a lovely Supper for us. After finishing the main meal, mom was wiped out. My sister helped her to their bedroom and she went to lie down for an hour. When it was time to wake up, I went to get her, and as I walked into the room it felt so calm there. Gran was doing her best to soothe her daughter. We had dessert, and finally went home around 5:30PM on Sunday.

Getting home, I asked Tim if Charlie and Gran had enjoyed the visit, and he said they had. I said I assumed Charlie was hanging around with the men, and Tim said he had been, even though he was a bit unimpressed because they were hanging out by the bar and Charlie does not like alcohol.

Mom's sister, Aunt S, came by at around 7PM so she could find out what she needed to get for the Mozambique trip (I'm finishing work on Friday, then Saturday morning we head off to Mozambique for 3 weeks! Can't wait!) She had brought two of her grandsons along. One is seven and one is five. Both boys are very naughty and very unruly, so every time she brings those boys to my house, I get worked up. They have a tendency to take all of the toy boxes the twins have (there are 3) and throw every toy onto the floor. When you ask them to pick the toys up, they refuse. As a rule, my kids know right from wrong, and when those kids are in my house, I still enforce my rules. The first thing I did when they arrived on Sunday, was I walked to Kiddo's room and closed the door. There is no way I will let them cause havoc there. Of course, just as they arrived, Tim sent me a message and said, "I'm getting an angry little face from Kiddo. Who is upsetting the two of you?"

I explained that the hooligans were there and he said that Kiddo did not want them in his room. I told him I did not want them there either. He said if they were going to intrude on his space, he was going to show them how much he disliked that idea. I do not want him getting so worked up that he does something to scare kids, even when the kids annoy me as well. Therefore, I told him to stay calm and that they will not be coming into his room. No kids would be, not even the twins. Tim answered by saying that the twins were always welcome, he sees them as his "brothers" and he loves having them in his room. I told Tim that I know they love being in his room, they can feel they are welcome there and they will not stay away under normal circumstances. I also mentioned that I saw him as part of the collective of my kids. I have three boys, not two, and Tim said the little guy started blushing and got a little flustered. He still gets overwhelmed by getting "Mommy" attention; he does not know how to react to it.

Monday evening (yesterday 10 December 2012), when I got home from work, mom met me at the door. She was pale and I could immediately see she was in a lot of pain. After the boys were bathed and fed, I spent time with my mom. I was sitting in the lounge with her, and I distinctly heard static electricity directly in front of my right ear. This is the kind of sound you get when you rub your feet on a woolly carpet and touch something metal, that popping sound that occurs. It happened a few times while I was sitting there and at one point I thought I was going crazy. I was looking around, wondering what on earth could be making that noise. I also picked up that the atmosphere in the house was a little thick. Not like it was when the dark entity was in the house, this was worry. I sent Tim a message and immediately asked him if Charlie was ok. He answered that Charlie was anxious for some reason, I just had to give him a minute so he could attune himself to Charlie better. He told me he was worried about someone in the house. And so was Gran. He mentioned that Kiddo was so happy and content he was absolutely peaceful. Then he asked me if mom was in a lot of pain, and I said yes. That is why Charlie was so worked up. I asked Tim what could have caused the static electricity I had heard, and he said, "The question is who, not what." He told me it was Charlie, pulling energy from the speaker above my head. As I was sitting there, I had the distinct feeling that my right side was being tickled. I asked Tim if this was Charlie, and he said no, Charlie was hovering around mom. Gran was sitting next to me, trying to take my mind off my worries. They had switched places for a minute. I actually should have known it was Gran, as Tim had put it "her touch is a mother's touch, soft and soothing."

Both Tim and Elaine sent me messages telling me that mom had gotten pain medication from the hospital, but she didn't like taking it because it made her feel funny. I said yes, it threw her off balance. Tim urged me to get her to take the pain meds, and something for nausea as he picked both up from her. We had to change the dressing on her wound, and I really did not like doing that. I do not like having to do things that could potentially cause pain to my loved ones. When that was done, Tim sent me a message and told me:

"Your mom does not like not being the "Mommy" in this scenario. She likes being the one you come to for help and support, not the other way around. However, tell her, if she walks alone, she is going to fall. Whatever you do, do not let your mom walk around alone tonight. I see her falling, please don't let her out of your sight."

As I read this message out loud, Tim told me Gran was now very afraid mom would fall as well, and he said Charlie had taken up a stance of blockage in the doorway leading to the passage and the bedrooms. He would block mom from going anywhere alone. I said to mom, if there were any doubts up until this point that the entities in the house can feel love for us, we now have our answer. When we were ready to go to bed, I made a few trips up and down, taking mom's stuff to her room. Every time I got to the passageway I felt Charlie very clearly. And she patiently waited in the lounge until I told her we could go to the room. When we got to the passage, I could feel Charlie walk on mom's left, while I took up her right, keeping her as stable on her feet as we were capable. Now I understood why he needed the extra energy. His energy was so strong I had the feeling if I reached out I would feel more than just tingles.

Tim later told me that Charlie was not only doing this of his own accord, but also because Gran had told him to. I had to smile when he said, "He's a little wary of upsetting her, she can be a difficult lady." Like mother, like daughter.

When mom was safely in bed, I could settle down as well, and I knew we could sleep peacefully. This morning, as I was getting ready to leave for work, I asked Gran to please watch over my babies and especially my mom. I asked Kiddo to do his share and try and keep the boys busy too. I could feel him smile as I left.

Hellhouse

Ever since I can remember I have been prone to feeling psychic energies, the good and the bad. My friends tell me I have the uncanny ability to read people without as much as speaking to them. This ability is especially observed in my mother's family, both an aunt and two cousins have declared to seeing, hearing and feeling some things quite beyond the veil of the living.

I grew up in a town called Worcester, in the Western Cape. Settled between mountains it always reminded me of a witch's cauldron, extremely hot in the summer, and freezing with snow on the mountains in the winter. We lived in a large house on the foot of a mountain in an area called Panorama.

Let me explain the layout of the house: The front door was situated at the end of an enclosed veranda, and led into a long foyer with a large open planned dining/sitting room area. To the right further down the foyer were french doors leading to a large TV-room, entertainment area with a bar, kitchen, study and large master bedroom. I always felt safest in this area of the house, most likely because it was a newer addition. The rest of the bedrooms were situated at the end of the foyer, that turned into a long hallway, with the first large on-suite bedroom at the start of the hallway, and the last bedroom across from it. My bedroom was the first to the left when turning into the hallway, and used to have a window facing outside, but after the additions, it faced the entertainment area. When we moved in (I was about a year old) My mom thought it the best room for a baby/toddler,as it was also the smallest bedroom, but when we moved in it was a ghastly purple colour.

I have no recollection of what happened there until I was about 4 years old. I was told I was always a quiet baby, I had to be woken up to be fed. But as soon as we moved into that house, and my mother left me in that room, I used to scream and cry non-stop. The result was that I slept in a small room connected to the master bedroom. So for years I was quite content. I always avoided the other side of the house, never venturing in the hallway. My sister, who is 12 years my senior, stayed in the large en-suite bedroom, and always complained to my parents that something was off there. She always felt watched. Now, my mother is quite a practical, no-nonsense woman, and told her to stop seeking attention. Naturally, she thought my sister put me up when I said I also felt uncomfortable in that area.

Fast forward a few years. When I was 5 years old it was time to start pre-primary, so my parents said it's time to move into my bedroom. The small bedroom was in about the center of the house, being built around it, yet the light from the entertainment area was enough to make one forget the window wasn't actually facing outside. I remember vividly not wanting to go into that room, the negativity was such that I struggled to breathe. So I avoided it until I had to go to bed. I used to sleep with the bedside light on, and always drew the covers right over my head, come winter or summer, and I used to pray until I fell asleep. Yet the negativity never relented. Now being alone on that side of the house, my sister used to come fetch me during the night and we'd sleep together in her double bed. Her room didn't feel as oppressive, but uncomfortable in the sense that something was always watching you, making the hair in your nape stand up together with goosebumps. And the shadows would move around all night. I used to wonder why there were so many, seeing that I couldn't ascertain where they came from.

My mother's family used to come visit over Christmas, and my two cousins would sleep with my sister in her room. One particular night there was a loud bang, like a window being knocked out, and then the screams. My sister and cousins ran out of the room. After they calmed down they said they were awakened by the bang and then all three of them saw a dark figure standing in the corner near the built-in-cupboards. It stared at them, then suddenly started laughing in deep, malignant voice. They got up and ran out. Of course, with inspection the adults found nothing. But after that night the negativity increased dramatically. So much so that I was too scared to even go into my room alone. My sister used to come in with me just so that I could get clothes, and then shut the door.

One night, when I was seven, my sister slept over at a friend's, and I was forced to sleep in that room. I awoke in the middle of the night with my heart racing, feeling ill and ice cold. Then, a few seconds later there was a crash as a stationary holder fell off my small bookcase to the floor... Then a few toy cars also made it onto the floor, like someone was swiping them off the bookcase with their hands. And then, a low, deep chuckle that literally made my flesh crawl. I was frozen, could hardly breathe, alternatively getting hot and cold. I just drew the covers more tightly and prayed. The next day my mother was quite adamant that I had a nightmare, and that the things fell because they were probably too close to the edge,

About a month later, my sister was yet again away and I had to sleep alone. During the night I awoke again, heart pounding, with a feeling of dread. This time I felt a presence, so malignant and evil I wanted to vomit. Then, I felt the bed covers move on my left (the bed was against the wall, with about 15cm space between.) I was facing the wall, so I slowly forced my eyes open and saw, quite clearly (seeing I slept with the bedside lamp on) a hand, coming up from underneath the bed, feeling up. It was grey-slightly green in colour, with long fingers. I started hitting it, and it felt quite real, hard. I heard a hissing sound and then started screaming bloody murder. My mother burst in a couple of seconds later and I just got up and ran past her. From that night onward, I refused to go into that room, and slept on a blowup mattress next to my parent's bed. After that night my mother simply removed my clothes and locked the room.

Years later I asked her what she saw, and said she didn't see anything, but heard something hiss and snarl and felt a very oppressive presence. Being a woman who always thought ghost stories were hogwash, and never really felt anything tangible before, she was quite terrified. For weeks thereafter our priest would come and even attempted a cleaning and blessing. My sister's room felt safer for quite a while, yet the negativity radiating through that one closed door only got worse. My parents never told me what the priest said about the whole ordeal, but years later I heard my grandmother say (as they discussed that house) that house is a portal to hell.

There has been many more experiences, in that house, and in another one in Worcester. But since this story is getting long, I'll leave it to another time.

He Tried To Get My Daughter

Before I even start my story, I feel there are so many people which leave really sarcastic comments which I feel are very unnecessary as they don't really even know me or what's happening in my home - for each one of us that have a story to share, it is very real to us.

Any way back to my story. So since the last story, we have discovered that my son frequently gets these finger marks on his arms which are black, not even blue, like a bruise should be but black. We have asked everyone we know if someone is hurting him and they say no. These are like a grown man's finger marks. I have many a times walked into my daughter's room and found her lying on the floor but there is no way for her to fall out of bed or climb out.

The other night when my daughter started crying, my husband got up before me to check in on her and after about half an hour he came flying into my room with her as white as a piece of paper. As he gave her to me, he kept looking towards the room as if there were someone there and he kept peeping around the corner as if waiting to catch someone off guard. When I asked him what was wrong or what he saw, all he said was nothing. I found out a few days later after I asked him again, he said that it felt like someone was having a tug of war with him with my daughter and as he looked up he looked into the face of something so evil he could not even describe it.

After we got settled again in bed with my daughter now by us (I sleep closest to the bedroom door). After about an hour of what I kept laying awake trying to figure out what he saw, I felt something try and pull my daughters off the bed. I felt 2 tugs coming from her foot and few seconds passed and another hard one. If I was not holding her tight enough, I swear what ever it was would have pulled her off. I then asked my husband to swap sides with me and as soon as we did I fell asleep with my daughter as if nothing ever happened. I asked my husband the same night if we could please leave becuase I really can't take another minute of being at home, and he tells me no. Even if I argue and prove my point of things being in our house he tells me no.

Last week we were in bed and as usual I am awake anytime from 01:00am. I looked over to my door and I saw something like a gremlin walk into my room. It jumped on to my bed and started climbing on top of me. As soon as I managed to wake my husband up it disappeared and he just looked at me as if I was mad. On odd occassions while in bed I will see someone behind my bedroom door (my door is always open right against the wall so it is not possible for anyone to stand behind it without me seeing them). I will see someone try and squirm their way out from behind the door or I will see a shadow peak at me from behind the door with his bony hands wrapped around the door.

Things have now started disappearing and then reappearing in another place, I see the shadows more frequently, my son refuses to sleep in his room and my daughter tells me there is someone standing in the passage or by my door but when I check obviously there is no one there. Last night I heard someone in the lounge while my husband was out (the TV was off). And something that was standing in the middle of the kitchen counter fell off while we were all watching tv in the lounge. Things fall in the kitchen in the middle of the night but when we check there is nothing there.

What scares me the most is the expression on my husband's face when he came running into the room with my daughter.

Is this thing trying to take my kids and doing something to my hsband that he won't believe anything I tell him.

Even when we have had a priest walk into our house, he walked straight out and won't say why.

There is nothing left to do anymore. I can not find a demonologist anywhere in South Africa that can help us.

This thing is hurting my kids and I can't do anything about it.