Things That Go Bump in the Night

Things That Go Bump in the Night...Mike's Story

Theres an old Cornish Prayer that goes something like this:  “ From ghoulies and ghosties and long-legged beasties and things that go bump in the night, may the good Lord protect us.”  My Mother always used to recite that to me just before bedtime, when she knew that I was afraid of her turning the lights in my bedroom off.  For some reason those words tickled the snot out of me, and I would laugh and giggle as  the words would strike some unknown funny bone deep inside my belly.  It was some kind of magical prayer, and it always seemed to work miracles at driving my darkest fears away.  You see, I had a small problem--a problem that all kids that were afraid of the dark had.  I had an infestation of evil closet monsters.   

What?  You laugh at my closet monsters?  Oh, they were so real!  Their activities would begin every night just after my mother would come into my room--tucking me snugly into bed and then switching off the light.  I would lie awake watching in horror as their beady little eyes oogled me, seemingly assessing whether I was large enough to make a tasty sandwich out of, or if I would cook up better in a stew pot with some carrots and potatoes.  Ahhh...those were the days.  It’s been a long time since I’ve thought of my closet monsters.  Things were so much simpler back then.

My little closet buddies became a fascination of mine.  I needed to know more about them!  The library was a place of wonder for me back then, and I knew that all of the answers I sought could be found within those walls.  I was right.  The first book I ever checked out of a public library was “Where the Wild Things Are”, by Maurice Sendak.  THOSE creatures were my closet monsters!  I seem to remember that the first time I read the book (Ok, I was only 4 years old...I just looked at the pictures) it gave me nightmares, but then later on as I repeatedly re-read that book I seemed to become less and less afraid of both the illustrations and, the things lurking behind the closed doors in my bedroom.  I had seen them in the light and I now knew them.  They had become powerless over me. 

As I look back on it, I may very well owe my childhood night-terrors a boon of some kind.  Perhaps it was they who brought me onto this current path of seeking the unknown, because once I had finished conquering their hold over me it was time to move on to bigger and better things.  I never looked back.  It was a natural progression for me to move from books on fictional  monsters to non-fiction books about dinosaurs, and then from dinosaurs to the Loch Ness Monster, and then into books of the unexplained and UFO's!  There were always tales of ghosts and spirit encounters in those books about the unexplained and I would spend hours reading them, enjoying the scare and the adrenaline rush I would get from a particularly frightening story.

It’s probably a good thing that I read all of those books and stories as a child.  They probably laid a foundation for me to build upon.  I had my first REAL paranormal experience when I was very young, around the age of ten.  My father was in the military and we were stationed in Ramstein, Germany.  Growing up and going to school there in Germany was great fun.  Many times when we should have been in the classroom learning our reading and writing, we were actually out on a field trip exploring the wonders of Europe.  I remember taking trips to vineyards, a cruise down the Rhine River, and a trip to Hoeneken Lake (a local German town close our base housing).  Once we visited the Cathedral where Martin Luther's crypt is located, and we got to go down into the basement of the church to pay our respects.  I also remember a particularly fascinating trip to Switzerland where some really interesting things happened.

THE SHADOW

On the outside, this place looked like any other ordinary ski lodge-type structure that you would find in any quaint  little European village, but exterior looks can be deceiving.  The inside was something completely different--something straight out of "Gone with the Wind".  Reminiscent of the old plantation houses of the deep south back in the Civil War days, our "lodge" boasted a giant fireplace ala "Citizen Kane" and a long swooping fan staircase with marble steps--complete with an ornate, hand carved, nude sculpture Newell post.  The entryway was lofted, and from the front door you could see the upstairs doorways and hallways beyond the ornate spindles and railings of an ancient wooden guardrail.  All of the floors were dark wood.  All of railings were dark wood.  Even the marble steps and stone flooring tiles were dark mottled tones and altogether the place evoked a forbidding, Gothic-Victorian atmosphere.  In retrospect, it was magnificent. 

I was only ten years old at the time, and it was my first time away from home without my parents.  The elementary school that I was attending at that time, Kaiserslautern Elementary School (K-Town for short), had offered this one week ski trip to all fifth graders, and to a very select few 4th graders.  I was lucky enough to be one of the 4th graders accepted on this week long trip to Switzerland, where we would learn to ski and perhaps even get to play around on the base of the Matterhorn--a mountain that we had all heard of before as it was once a pretty good roller-coaster at Disneyland in California! 

We went there to learn to ski, but as it turned out, I wasn't very good at it.  I wound up spending an awful lot of time alone in the chalet's common room, sitting by the fireplace and pondering my inability to learn how to "snowplow" and contemplating my episodes of nearly flying off of the ledges and cliffs of the area mountainsides.  It was a good thing that I had mastered the fine art of falling down on my very first day there, or I wouldn't be here typing this recollection today.  There were too many close calls that easily could have ended my life. 

Altogether there were about 16 of us kids on this field trip--eight boys and eight girls.  We were separated into dormitories at different ends of a long hallway that ran the length of the entire second floor of the house.  Looking back on it today, I seem to remember there being 2 rooms for the boys, each with 4 beds and the same for the girls whose bedrooms were lucky enough to be located right next to the only set of bathrooms on the entire second floor.  The boys dormitories were viewable from the downstairs entryway, which meant that these were the rooms that were exposed to the open aired, loft type hallway that I first noticed upon entering the house.  This is NOT a good place to put a boy that's afraid of heights--which I was and had been since I was a wee thing.  Girls were soooooo lucky...not only did they get to have the bathrooms right next to their bedrooms, but they also didn't have the extra added worry of stumbling out of dorm room door while running to the bathroom at night, and finding themselves tripping over their stocking feet and flying over the guard rail!  I was a strange kid.  I really DID worry about those kinds of things.

Most times the evenings were great fun.  We spent a lot of time telling ghost stories--the stupid kind--and  getting into pillow fights.  Dinnertime's were always a new adventure, and our hosts always fed us very well.  It was in Switzerland that I was introduced to such Epicurean delights as blood oranges and real Swiss yogurt.  Also, I cannot neglect to mention that the Swiss make the most unforgettable chocolate you'll ever eat in your entire life.  Switzerland is a little fat boys dream come true!!!  After dinner, someone was always invited to "Sing for their Supper", which was always most entertaining.  Those who couldn't sing could do anything they wanted--tell jokes, read poems, anything at all.  For me, these were the best times of the day; the only times that I felt like I was part of the gang.

The late nights were terrible.  I couldn't sleep.  I was scared.  I was a total wreck because I KNEW that all of the kids were laughing and making jokes about me not being able to ski.  I spent a lot of time in the bathroom due to a rather embarrassing nervous condition known commonly today as "stress".  This condition usually struck me at night around midnight to two in the morning, waking me from a dead sleep and keeping me pinned in said facilities for at least a half an hour at a stretch.  Sometimes you could catch me as late as 4 am wandering the halls coming back from the bathroom--eyes staring down at the floor, embarrassed because I couldn't handle learning to ski and because--in all honesty--because I was homesick.  It was on one of these little late night trips when I first noticed that things in our little ski lodge weren't quite right.  Something strange was happening in this house, and I was the only one awake late enough in the night to even notice it.

The first time I encountered it, was on about the third night of our trip.  I was returning from one of my little trips to the facilities when I heard footsteps echoing up from the staircase.  I was immediately defensive, assuming that someone was coming to give me a good talking to about roaming the halls at this late hour of the night.  I remember checking the stairs as I passed the staircase on my way back to my room--just a quick glance down to the middle of the staircase, and saw no one there.  Thinking that I had dodged a bullet, I dashed past the stairs and found my way back to the dorm and my bed, grateful to have not gotten into any trouble.  I was alright after getting back into bed, and slept for the rest of the night peacefully.

I found myself in a similar situation the following night as I once again encountered the footsteps, only this time it was as I was heading toward the bathroom.  In this particular instance my situation was rather urgent, so there was no stopping me and I took the rest of the hallway at a mad dash to avoid any confrontations.  Once I had made it to my little nocturnal hideaway, I had the chance to listen and try to figure out who else was up and roaming the halls with me at that ridiculous hour of the night.  The footsteps continued, not seeming to get any closer OR any farther away.   

After completing the business at hand, I once again began my trek back to my room.  The footsteps had still not come any closer than they were when I originally left my room!  This struck me as strange, and I decided to do a little further investigating.  I crept down the hallway until I reached the stairs, being very careful to make as little noise as possible.  When I reached the stairs, I craned my neck as far as I could to see if I could see anyone.  No one was there.  Good!  I took the first few steps down, certain that I would be able to see who was up at this hour.  The footsteps were louder than before.  Were they pacing down there?  What in the heck was going on?  The footsteps were so loud--I knew that who ever it was just had to be close to me, but even as I crept to the middle of the staircase I knew that I wouldn't find anyone.  It was pitch dark down there, and no one would be pacing around downstairs in the dark this late at night now, would they? 

Just as soon as I hit the middle of the staircase, the footsteps stopped. 

That was the first time that I'd ever felt that feeling.  You know the feeling--the one where you feel the hackles on the back of your neck stand up, and that cold shiver runs down the length of your spine.  You all know that feeling--everyone gets it--especially in times of danger.  It's almost like that shiver you got when you were a kid--the one your Mother told you meant that "someone had stepped on your grave."  The footsteps stopping and the complete and total thickness of the ensuing silence sent my senses into hyper drive.  I dashed--I RAN--back up the stairs and down the hall to the safety of my dormitory and my bed, praying to God that no one had seen me.  Sleep eluded me that night for some strange reason.  I laid in my bed tossing and turning and waiting for the proverbial “other shoe” to drop.  It never did...at least not that night.

The next morning at breakfast I finally broke down and asked one of our instructors if anyone had been awake downstairs at that time of the night.  She told me that she didn’t know of anyone, but that she would be happy to ask around.  Then of course she wanted to know why I asked, and so like an idiot, in front of everyone at the breakfast table, I told her the truth.  The result was as expected--a hearty laugh and the anticipated comments of having bad dreams.  She did agree to ask around though, but I was pretty sure she agreed to do this just to humor me. 

If I had been hoping that the other children at the table had been too busy talking amongst themselves while this exchange with my teacher happened, I was sorely disappointed.  Much to my chagrin, it seemed that every kid in the lodge had been listening with rapt attention.  Unexpectedly though, within a matter of minutes my social standing in the hierarchy of children skyrocketed from “stupid little fat kid that can’t ski” to instant celebrity.  It seemed that everyone was really excited about what was happening in the lodge and eager to learn more about whom the mysterious footsteps belonged to.  I know I must have told the tale ten times that day, and every time it seemed to get more and more exciting.  It scared some of the girls, but others were really interested.  Those that weren’t so scared decided that it would be really cool to come to our dorm room that night after lights out and have a seance--to try to attempt contact with whatever was roaming the halls at night.  The guys that shared the room with me didn’t have any problem with that since I had, after all, provided an excuse for girls to join us in our bedroom after lights out!  I was so enjoying my newfound popularity!

Girls seem to pack the darndest things in their suitcases.  The last thing I would have thought of packing in my suitcase for a week-long trip to Switzerland would have been candles and matches, but somehow these girls showed up after lights out with just those items in hand.  In no time at all we were all sitting on the floor in a circle, arms extended and holding hands, the flame of the candle dancing merrily away in the center of the rug.  None of us really knew what we were doing.  I’d never even heard of a seance before that afternoon, but one of the girls claimed that she had seen them done on TV, and that it was easy.  We sat there in the middle of the room for what seemed to be hours (mostly likely only about 30 minutes), concentrating as hard as we could on bringing forth the spirit that walked the hallways.  Nothing happened.  It was a total fiasco.  Not only did nothing happen but the candle kept going out while we were concentrating, and everyone knew that the candle HAD to stay lit at all times during a seance or the spirits wouldn’t come!  The girls left our room disappointed that night, not just because we didn’t contact the spirit, but also because we weren’t intelligent enough to stow any snacks or drinks away in our room anywhere.

On a side note here, I look back on that situation and marvel at my naivety.  The candle kept blowing out, and we didn’t even give that a second thought.  I still wonder if we were, in fact, doing something right with the seance and actually managed to summon something.  I guess it really doesn’t matter in the long run though, as we weren’t around long enough to have to deal with the consequences of our actions.  We were only going to be there for one more night and then we would be back on the bus for the long trip back to Germany.

Wouldn’t you know that I slept through that entire night after the seance?  I never even woke up having to go to the bathroom.  If there were more footsteps, I missed them.  If anyone else woke up and heard them, I never knew about it. 

My popularity was very short lived, and the next day I was back to being “the kid who can’t ski”.  Everyone was really hyped, because this trip today was our big event--the Matterhorn.  We were actually going to be skiing at the base of the Matterhorn!  (Well, WE thought it was the Matterhorn.  It sure looked like it, anyway.)  It was all very exciting, even if I couldn’t do it right.  I still had a lot of fun throwing snowballs and whatnot while the other kids were doing their ski thing.  I actually did put my ski’s on for a little while to give it another try, just so I could say that I skied the Matterhorn.  The view just isn’t as good when you are lying on your side or face down with a mouthful of snow though, so I gave it up again after only a few tries. 

I hadn’t given the strange events at the lodge even a passing thought that day, but two in the morning came pretty quick after lights out that night, and I once again found myself in the situation of an emergency bathroom run.  At first, everything was quiet and I was relieved that I could do this in relative peace for a change.  Coming back from the bathroom however was a different story altogether!  I should have just stayed in there and slept the night away. 

Once again the footsteps started as I got to the stairs, just as they had on the first night when I encountered them.  Once again my curiosity got the best of me and I started down the steps to see who it was down there.  I really wanted to know what was going on, and this was going to be my last night to find out!  Once again I reached the middle of the stairs, and once again the footsteps stopped.  This time, I did NOT dash back up the stairs though.  I continued to go down them, ever so reluctantly, one single step at a time.

Whatever it was didn’t find my curiosity amusing in the least.  This time I think I offended it.  The footsteps started up again as I neared the base of the staircase, and this time they were louder and faster than ever before!  I tore up the stairs and back into my room, trying to be as quiet as I could but with as much haste as I could muster.  Flinging myself back into my bed, I covered my head up with the blankets in an attempt to hide from whatever it was that was coming for me.  I could still hear the tappings of feet on the floor from inside our dorm this time, which was something new.  That could only mean that whatever it was had finally come close to the door, which was something that it hadn’t ever done before.  Finally, when the rappings had reached their loudest point (my god, was it wearing clogs?), they stopped.  The silence was deafening.

That was about the time that I decided to brave the dark and stick my head out from under the covers.  After all, the footsteps had stopped, so the whole thing was probably over for the night.  The room was dark, but the moon reflecting off of the snow outside and shining through the window, and I could see clearly.  That was when that feeling--that warning sensation--happened again.  The hackles on the back of my neck stood up, and my eyes headed over to the doorway.  Something was going on, and it didn’t look good!  The big brass doorknob on the door was turning back and forth...back and forth....  The deafening silence remained intact as the normally squeaky, rusty tumblers of the doorknob continued to move with nary a sound.  I really wanted to yell, to do something, anything at all to wake someone else up...someone who could perhaps protect me or even to just be scared with me.  For some reason though, that wasn’t possible.  I remained paralyzed under my blankets as the door very slowly began to open.

A black figure glided into the room.  When I say a black figure, I mean a black figure...not just someone I couldn’t see because it was dark in the room, but something that was made out of a flowing, transparent, black cloth-like substance in the shape of a human body.  When I say it glided, I mean it moved with a flowing grace that isn’t associated with the human body... Not even the most graceful or talented of Russian ballerina’s can move in this fashion.   It was dressed in costume or period clothing of some sort--it’s most noticeable feature being a huge hat that was strangely familiar, but nonetheless unrecognizable.   Almost quaker-like this hat seemed, with a very wide brim--even wider than the figures shoulders--but it differed from that in having a long flowing veil that trailed down the front of the hat, covering the face and continuing nearly to where it‘s chest should have been.  It was almost like a marriage between a quakers hat and a womans veiled mourning or funerary hat. 

The figure didn’t cast a shadow.  I remember noticing that, because the room was fairly bright from the moonglow and if it were solid it should have cast some sort of shadow. In fact,  it seemed to be made of shadow!  I watched in horror as it moved around the room, eventually stopping at one of the beds and seeming to touch the face of one of the boys sleeping there.  It continued on to the next bed in the same fashion, and then on to the next.  Eventually I reached a point where I KNEW that I had to close my eyes and pretend to be asleep, because if it checked me and found me awake, that was going to be all she wrote!  It took every little bit of determination that I had, but I managed to do it.  I closed my eyes to that horror that I had summoned to our sleeping quarters, and let it do it’s own thing. 

I opened them a while later...had I fallen asleep?  The room was quiet and empty.  No shadow men were sitting by my bed waiting for me to awaken so that they could devour my soul.  All of the other boys appeared to be sleeping peacefully, and nothing was out of place.  Apparently it was over, and I had come out of it unscathed.  I breathed a heavy sigh of relief, closed my eyes again, and finally fell asleep in earnest. 

I often wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t closed my eyes?  Would the shadow man have come to me?  Did he come to me and then leave me alone thinking that I had gone to sleep?  If I hadn’t been “asleep”, what sorts of things would I have experienced had he looked me in the eyes, or touched me?  Could he have shown me something new or something marvelous, or would I have some sort of mental breakdown and a lifetime of misery being shifted from sanitarium to sanitarium?

We left the next day to head back home.  I never told anyone about the events of that night, as I knew that I would be laughed off of the bus and quite possibly even out of the playground when we finally returned to our normal school days back in K-Town.  I’ve never forgotten a single incident that happened during that trip though, even after all of these years.