Ghosts, Guns, and You

Posted by: ChuckMaster

I don't like telling this one to people I know, since it either makes them afraid for my safety or sanity, but the goons here might find it interesting.

I live in a duplex with a hard wood floor. It's not a very old house but it creaks all the freakin time. It's two floors, with a basement/garage and an attic too low to stand up in. The weird thing about the attic is that you can only get to it from the closet and through an access panel.

Last year I woke up to a loud noise. Now granted, in my neighborhood people come home at 3 am, party, and to make things worse I can hear my neighbor walking around since the house creaks. So it's usually a loud car door, a door slam, and sometimes the domestic fight. The year before that the other side was broken into, so I was on my guard.

Now normally, I have learned to tune myself out, since often I would get scared, search the house with a weapon, and then feel stupid and paranoid afterwards. Nevertheless, I keep a 45 inside the bed's two small sliding drawers, one side keeping the gun and the other keeping the ammo (I don't load a gun unless I'm using it.)

Well, so I'm wide awake in my bed, and I heard another bang. I turn on my reading light, and then I walk over and turn on my bedroom and hall light on. I peer over the stairs and I just listen. I hear it again, but I'm having trouble pin pointing it. And it's loud enough to cause me concern. So I walk downstairs in my boxers, check the living room door, check the kitchen door, and everything is fine.

I have the dishwasher in front of my kitchen door which blocks it from opening. Rather than pulling that away I flicker the basement light on a few times, figuring that would freak out an intruder. I hear nothing. So as I walk back up stairs I hear it again, but I attribute to my neighbor walking around again.

So as I turn off all but my reading light I hear it loud and clear. It's above me. I then hear slow footsteps moving about, and some small shuffling. I wait for a moment while listening to it, making sure I'm hearing what I think I'm hearing.

I grab my 45 from the head of the bed and push the clip in. I turn on the light again and I open up the closet door and turn it on. The noise continues, but seems startled now since the pacing of the footsteps increase.

I push my clothes aside that are handing and I proceed to tear away the empty boxes I placed in front of the access door (I was meaning to put these in the attic but I got lazy.) My heart is racing, I'm half terrified and half hoping to catch the intruder before he gets away.

I pull open the attic door and reach for the chain light. The light comes on, and I hear footsteps and stumbling on the other side of the attic, opposite of the small staircase.

Now, there still isn't a lot of light in the attic with the naked bulb, so I reach outside the closet and grab a flashlight I had on a small dresser. I crawl onto the shelf that the boxes were on and shine the flashlight in the direction of the noises, while keeping me safely hidden in the staircase. The noises continue as I blindly shine it on the far side of the attic. So I slowly crawl on the first step and rise to poke my head above the attic floor.

My flashlight is shining on a white figure. It's skinny and lanky and it’s hunched over like an ape. At first I'm thinking it some crack head that crawled on my roof and somehow found a way in my tiny attic but couldn't figure out how to get out. So I yell at the guy, asking him how he got in here. He just stares at me with these black eyes. I didn't know if he was naked or just wearing underwear, and at this point I'm just pissed and disgusted. I put the flash light down, figuring the light in his face may be scaring him more than I need to. After that he still isn't moving or talking. So I yell at him again, telling him he needs to get the fuck out of here.

Well, the white figure stands up, as much as he could in that little space, and strikes a pose that reminds me of a bull about to charge. I can hear the joists creak as he shifts his weight.

I chamber the gun and point it just below his feet. I'm doing my best to breathe slowly to keep myself calm. I tell him he needs to sit down and tell me how he got in or how he plans on getting the hell out of here. I tell him I have a loaded 45 on him and he'd better sit down.

He starts making slow strides towards me. He takes about two steps, each one creaking the floor boards, exaggerating each sound. I start to squeeze the trigger and I am damning the slow trigger pull on this cheap browning knock-off. He takes a third step, he's halfway across the attic, and I'm aiming at his legs. The gun finally goes off.

Now there is a loud band, the shell ejects and bounces off my face, slightly burning me, and the attic fills with dust. My hearing goes away for a moment and I can smell the gun powder.

A moment later the dust starts to clear, but there's now a white cloud where the figure was, and that clears away as well. At first I think I'm seeing things or going crazy, but I'm alone in the attic and I just fired a gun in a residential neighborhood. I uncock the gun and set it down. I pick up the flashlight and check every corner of the attic. I don't see a damn thing. I check the small window above me, but it's intact. There seems to be no way in or out other than the stairwell I'm standing in which I had to clear crap out of my closet to get to.

I walk over to where the white figure was standing. I look down and I see black footprints on the joists. I trace the prints and see that they seemed to have moved back and forth the attic several times. There were even prints on the stairs.

I peer down at one and poke it. They're made of some soft, black mud and the smell like shit. I look down at myself and I seemed to have kneeled in it when I was on the stairs and didn't notice until now.

So leave the attic and head to the bathroom to clean up, I'm still in disbelief of everything that had just happened. Then the front door starts pounding.

It's the police and they're pissed. My neighbor called them when she heard the shot. I let them in, and there are three of them. I tell them I saw an intruder, shot at him, and tell them where the gun is and how many rounds are still left.

So they sit me down on the couch and two go to check upstairs. This takes them maybe ten minutes. I can hear them muttering amongst themselves and they don't sound happy. They come back down and start drilling me to go over my story several times. I mention the foot prints, and they said they say them, but if someone was in the attic they're gone now. Then they start asking if I've been drinking or on drugs or medication. I tell them no, and that I'm drug tested at work.

So they have a pow-wow outside with one babysitting me inside. I can see a few neighbors trying to peak into the open front door from across the street. I'm tired, pissed and embarrassed as all hell. I'm in my damn underwear with a tiny burn on my face and shit smeared on my legs that's half washed off.

So one sergeant comes in, gives me a speech about gun safety and how I could have hurt someone, and tells me they're going to call me to come to court and issue a citation. They don't leave until I give them a trigger lock to put on the gun and close it in its case.

So I'm awake the rest of the night. In the morning I check out the attic again. The foot prints are still there but the wood has absorbed most of it. I look at the window again and wonder if there was any possible way anyone could have got through it.

I take one last look and I notice something in the corner. There is the skeleton of a rat or other small rodent. Its head is crushed and its back legs are torn off. There are some tiny bits of rotted fur or flesh around it.

I reluctantly clean it up.

So a year later, the cops never called me back, and I'm moving out of that place.