Ghosts in the Dark

Imagination is probably your worst enemy when you're terrified.

This is me, sixteen years ago. We'd just moved into our new house and all was well.....until I realized that there was a graveyard just behind my room. Luckily, at that time, there were no windows in my room that overlooked the graveyard so I could just pretend it wasn't there.

My parents took part in a lot of social events and were hardly ever at home....which left me to my own devices. At these times, my neighbours used to baby-sit me. The woman who lived in the first floor of my neighbour's house prided herself on her ability to see ghosts. "I was born with a thin white film over my eyes," she would say, "which enables me to see all kinds of supernatural beings. Why, once, I woke up in the middle of the night and there was a man sitting at the edge of my bed and looking down at me! His lips were moving but I couldn't hear a word he was saying. He then caught hold of my feet and I screamed and put the lights on and there was nobody there!"

Now, sixteen years later (and in broad daylight) I think that it was probably her spinster fantasies talking, but at that time, this story really creeped me out. The kicker came when we built our first floor a few years later. She called me aside and in a conspiratorial whisper thanked me. I wanted to know what she was thanking me for. She had a vague smile on her face as she confided, "You know, after you built your first floor, you've blocked my view of the graveyard and I haven't had a "visitation" since. Maybe now the ghosts get caught in your house on the way to mine!"

That spooked the living daylights out of me. That’s when my imagination started running riot and the nightmares began. I started imagining ghosts at every dark corner and crevice of my room. I began to avoid coming upstairs alone for now, my new room afforded a splendid view of the graveyard in all its majesty. My parents quickly got tired of escorting me upstairs and my mother bought me a small ornate silver cross. "Keep this in your pocket always and nothing will be able to harm you," she said. It was some small consolation. I began clinging to the cross every time I even thought of coming upstairs and for a time, it worked....until my imagination got the better of me again.

My first funeral. I was in my room when I heard it. The drums beating outside. I looked out and there, just below my window was the funeral procession. About six people were carrying a small coffin while others were beating drums and bawling their lungs out, heading towards the graveyard. I watched, entranced, as the service unfolded and the coffin was buried. That night, after an especially horrifying nightmare, I woke up in a cold sweat. My room was pitch dark. The only thing I could see was the slightly luminescent screen of my computer monitor. But that’s not what spooked me. What spooked me was the feeling that I was no longer alone in my room. As I looked towards the computer, I saw a young girl with shoulder-length silverish hair sitting at my chair and gazing into the computer screen. Her hands were poised over the keyboard, but she wasn't moving. She was just sitting there, staring at the computer.

I rushed into my parents room and dived under the covers with them, refusing to step foot into my room until she was gone. My mother dutifully checked my room and reported nothing strange. Or no one strange. But even so, I refused to sleep alone that entire week and had the computer shifted to my parents’ room. My grandfather made it worse by telling me to always check under my bed before going to sleep every night. You never know….

That’s when the silver ornate cross that my mother had given me really came in handy. We were inseparable, even in the daytime. Just having it in my pocket gave me the courage to face dark rooms. I remember imagining hungry monsters waiting in my room, ready to pounce on me. That’s when I’d squeeze the cross in my pocket and lunge at the light switch. The evil would always dissipate when the lights came on.

Then, one day, when I was upstairs alone, I realized that I didn’t have the cross with me. I panicked but at the same time I realized that I had been upstairs for over an hour and nothing bad had happened. No hands had sidled out from under the bed and caught hold of my ankles. No monsters had jumped out at me and said the proverbial “boo.” I was quite safe and okay. I didn’t need the cross for protection. It was all in my head.

From that day on, my fears of the dark slowly began to abate. I would even make fun of my “ghostly” experiences and use them to scare my friends when they came home for sleepovers. After all, the dark terrace with its awesome view of the graveyard was an ideal place for midnight ghost stories.

But even after all these years, I still have the cross. I’ve hung it up on the wall that faces the graveyard. You know, just in case…..

As for my wayward imagination, it still runs riot at the very thought of ghosts and monsters. But I’ve learned to ignore it….just as I’m ignoring the thing staring over my shoulder right now and reading this blog.