Touched by Something

I stopped immediately to gather myself enough to continue on my quest to get to the loft and turn the antenna for my family.

Looking straight ahead at my next step, I took another deep breath and moved forward.

But this time, the floor didn't squeak under my foot as the first one had - which gave me enough confidence to take another.

And then I heard it.

The board behind me squeaked. The one that I had already left completely!

I took another step. And I heard a step behind me - heavy steps, now matching each and every step that I was taking! There were no words, there were no other noises, there was nothing but the beating of my heart, and those steps behind me!

I jumped for the ladder, trembling, and clenching to it as if it were my only lifeline, and I began to climb up it as hard and fast as I could. But at this point, I no longer heard the heavy footsteps behind me, but each step on that ladder, as I drew nearer the ledge of the loft became harder and harder to make, as my knees were so weak and shaky.

I paused for a moment before pulling myself into the loft, and then...it touched me.

I felt it, cold, and sharp, through my hair and on my neck. I touched me... like an open hand with cold bony fingers.

Then the weight of my waist length hair was lifted completely off my back, taken high above my head, and then dropped.

My heart stopped in that endless moment - and in that moment - I thought I had died.

I jumped from that ladder, and although it took every bit of strength that I could find inside myself to get my legs to work for me, I ran. I ran as hard and fast as I possibly could.

What was in there?!? Was there someone hiding?!? Had I been unknowingly followed?!? Was I imagining things?!?

Was it HER?!? Had Mommy been telling the truth about the ghost?!?

I could not answer these questions then, nor can I now.

I walked back up to the shack the following day, when the sun was high in the sky, and I faced my fear - to some extent - that day by going inside, climbing the ladder, entering the loft, and turning that antenna - with Daddy standing there waiting for me on the outside...

I saw nothing, nor did I feel anything that time - and was quite relieved to find the place not as scary as it had seemed the night before.

Daddy never asked us to go back up there anymore if our picture went out on us at night. If he saw something, felt something, or realized something that day that I as a child could not - he never told a soul. I just know that from that point on, if the antenna blew around at night Daddy would tell us that it was God's way of telling us it was time for bed - and I had no problems with that at all!

Whether or not that little shack was haunted, or I just let it haunt me, is highly questionable. But I still can't help but wonder sometimes...what was it that touched me?