Demon in the Curtains

From: exfileme (exfileme@isaac.com)
Story type: Ghost
Location: personal/home
Source: Form Submission

This really isn' a STORY to tell, rather a strange incident that happened when I was a small boy. The memory of this incident has rooted itself into the back of my subconsciosness, and I think I desperately need to uproot it; granted that this story would be unbelievable to everyday sceptics. Which is why I am here. To tell about the demon in my curtains. The one that laughed at me, teased me, kept me up most of the night while my parents slept in the adjacent room.

It would only appear when I was alone in my room, and mostly at night. I really can't recall the actual words this being said to me when it apperaed in my curtains, but I DO remember the laughing and the feelings you get when you're put down or teased. Which was why I never told anyone about this demon except for my father, and even HE didn't believe me.

One could blame these delusions on the separation of my parents, when my mother took me and left my father in that house. I went to visit my father there every other weekend, but I wouldn't sleep in my room. Not that room. Oh, the Thing was still there, but I avoided that room as much as I could until he finally moved into an appartment years later.

During college I went back to that house. An old couple lived there, referring me as the "Litte Parrish Boy" they remembered when Dad sold them the house. They let me see my old room, and sure enough it was still in there, hiding, watching. I didn't see it, just felt it in the walls, the crack under the closet door.

A year ago my mother told me that the whole territory the housing project was built on used to be a huge swamp. I wonder if there's someone under that house, and that spirit is rather pissed off. Maybe he was a bad sort when he was alive, and for some reason died (perhaps drowned) in that swamp, never to be found. I found him, alright. I found him floating in my curtains, peering down at me with wide eyes and a huge, boundless mouth that would laugh and tease and make my life miserable. I think he enjoyed it when my mother would lock me in my room. But that was a long time ago. I'm just five minutes away from that house now, and I won't go near it./