There’s A Man In My House!

1st Encounter: My mom was taking a nap one afternoon and sadly I don’t remember exactly the time, but all I know is that I was also taking a nap in my room. I woke up to her screaming my name, “AUTUMN! AUTUMN!” this startled me awake and I jumped out of bed still shaking off sleep. Right after that, she screams, “THERE’S A MAN IN THE HOUSE! THERE’S A MAN IN MY CLOSET!” I ran to her room thinking there was a legit person in our house. I have a physical disability so I can’t defend myself or her. I scream at her, “Where?!” She then calms a bit and told me that what she saw wasn’t a real man, because he was solid black, like a silhouette. I was still confused. She said he was a ghost, which I understood to be a shadow person (I’ve been into the paranormal lately). She said he had a medium length beard and a top hat, but she couldn’t make out any smaller details on him, no eyes, but she saw his nose. She described him as Abraham Lincoln. I asked her what he was doing when she noticed him. And she said he was walking from her closet toward the bedroom door to exit. [ Sidenote: When you walk into the bedroom and go to the left, you pass the tv and walk into an area where the bathroom sink is, if you walk in further you go into the bathroom where the toilet and shower is, but if you take a left, you walk into the walk in closet. ] I asked her how she felt when she saw him, because before this happened I’ve heard of the hat man before and knew he brought people fear. She said she wasn’t afraid of him really. He just startled her, because she has doubts about the paranormal. She’s a very religious woman and a born again Catholic. This brings me to the second encounter. 2nd Encounter: Months went by and nothing else happened that made us worry. My mom happened to be reading a book on The Antichrist, not interested in him, but about end times and what to look out for, things like that. My gramma had given her the book as a gift understanding that my mom’s soul isn’t open to evil, she has a strong relationship with God. This happened on another day when my mom was napping, and my dad was out shopping. I was listening to music on the computer and all of a sudden I heard my mom scream for me, again. I got up and ran to her room and threw open her door. The first thing I noticed was her wallet was open and things were scattered as if she was robbed, but everything was there. Then I see her sitting on the floor, stunned. She wasn’t coherent with me when I asked if she was alright and what happened. It took three minutes for her to collect her thoughts and she told me that someone punched her in the back of her head while she was lying down. Instinct told her to put her hands behind her head to block more hits, but then she was shoved HARD out of bed. We went over this again and again, trying to make logical sense out of it, but we couldn’t when bruises appeared the next day. She had a big bruise on the back of her head. I seriously had a feeling this was the hat man; maybe he didn’t like her politics and religion so he beat her. My cat Vinny’s reactions: The day following the first encounter he was able to sleep in the closet, but before that and after the following day, he’s super afraid. He does the creep walk toward it and peers into it. Sometimes he sits in front of it and it almost looks like he’s guarding the door. I feel like he is highly sensitive to paranormal things, my other cat Gracie only reacts if she sees him reacting.

By Autumn Olsson